


The Will of Heaven

by inwardtransience



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms
Genre: Female Harry Potter, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28328004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inwardtransience/pseuds/inwardtransience
Summary: The Ministry's ambush in the Department of Mysteries goes badly, and Ellie and Sirius end up falling into another world. Vaguely Eastern, but also not? Also, there are monsters apparently? Teaming up with Youko, another person from their world lost here, they try to figure out what the hell is going on...and also find some decent bloody tea.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Sirius Black, Harry Potter & Sirius Black & Youko Nakajima
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, look, another Christmas present. Just call me Santa Claus.

Ellie smiled. It felt like a lie.

Not that she wasn't legitimately amused — her friends _were_ being very silly, she thought. But despite herself, despite thinking there was no real _reason_ for it, dread coiled in the pit of her stomach, stiff and cold and distracting.

There wasn't any reason to be afraid, not really. Corporal punishment had been banned at Hogwarts for some time now — anyone who'd spent any length of time around Filch at all would know that hadn't _always_ been the case, but it was now. It wasn't like a professor could actually do anything _too_ unpleasant in a detention. At least, not without facing serious legal consequences afterward.

Ellie didn't care _how_ good of friends Umbridge was with the Minister, even she wouldn't be able to get away with beating the Girl Who Lived in detention. Or hexing or something, she didn't know, it didn't really matter, she couldn't _actually_ do anything that bad.

Still, her stomach turned and her skin tingled with a faint, vague sort of fear, her smile feeling all too much like a lie.

Megan and Justin and Sophie and Hannah and Wayne didn't seem to quite believe her reassurances it would be fine any more than she did, Susan glaring up at her, something cold and distrustful in her eyes. "I don't like that woman," she said.

Of course, Susan would know. Her mother — aunt, technically, but Susan called her her mother in private — was the Director of Law Enforcement. Meaning she reported directly to Fudge, and had run into all of his staff at one point or another. Umbridge had been around for years, Susan had been a small child the first time she'd met her. When they'd found out Umbridge would be their new Defence teacher, Susan had told the rest of them what she could, but she didn't have much to say, really. Her mother and Umbridge _disagreed politically_ , but they had little _personal_ contact. Not enough to have much to point to. She'd never _done_ anything, really, just...

"Yeah, I know." Ellie couldn't say she liked her much herself, honestly. And she always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, at least until she had reason to suspect otherwise, but from the beginning Umbridge had just... She didn't know. She was just kind of vaguely... _unsettling_. Ellie couldn't even say why. "I'll be fine. She's just one little Ministry bureaucrat, I can take care of myself."

A few cold smiles flicked across faces — not just her close friends, but other students around the common room eavesdropping, kids older and younger than her. They'd seen her charm people to a standstill, dance circles around dragons, they knew she'd escaped the Dark Lord. She could handle a petty Ministry official, they knew that.

So, while they let her leave the common room alone, and without further protest, she was certain some of them would still be up when she got back. No matter how long Umbridge kept her, they'd be waiting. And they'd raise holy hell if anything happened.

Hufflepuff had pretty much always had her back since the moment she'd been Sorted here. (Lucky break, that, she'd almost been sent to Gryffindor instead, might not have gone quite so well for her.) Whether it was Draco picking his stupid fights, or the rest of the school freaking out over the talking to snakes thing — of course, she could talk to all kinds of animals, people just tended to focus on the snakes — or inexplicably assuming she was attacking muggleborns _because_ she could talk to snakes — she was friends with half the kids who'd been petrified, _honestly_ — or when the other three houses, save for a few Gryffindor hold-outs, had decided to shun her during the Tournament, no matter what it was, Hufflepuff had always had her back. In a way, _especially_ since the graveyard.

Peter Pettigrew had killed Cedric. And Voldemort had nearly killed her. When she'd told them, practically every single kid in Hufflepuff had believed her, without reservation. It didn't matter what the _Prophet_ said, it didn't matter that Fudge's supporters were trying to make her out to be some kind of lying, manipulative problem child, their faith in her hadn't been shaken, most of them, not for an instant.

It'd actually made some political problems for Fudge. See, her classmates believed her. And they told their parents. And their parents believed them — or, some of them did, at least. And their parents talked to other people about it.

Some of them, their parents happened to be important people.

Susan's mum in particular — Amelia Bones was doing her best to mobilise her Department to deal with another Death Eater insurrection, around whatever obstruction Fudge threw in her path. Not that she was making _that_ much progress. Fudge couldn't get rid of her — he would need approval from the Wizengamot, and the Bonses _were_ one of the Seventeen Founders, Amelia herself very popular — but he could slow her down with distracting red tape, mess with her budget. Dora said she was doing a _little_ good, the DLE was more prepared than it would have been if Ellie hadn't warned them, but Fudge was making it far more difficult than it had to be. Though she was also managing to make headaches for Fudge in retaliation.

So Fudge, acting through Umbridge, was retaliating through Hogwarts. For some reason. Ellie had no idea why.

If Umbridge were putting pressure on _Susan_ somehow, to try to use that as leverage against her mother, that would _almost_ make sense. She guessed. But they weren't doing that. They were putting pressure on _Dumbledore_ , through these Educational Decrees, which was...odd. Dumbledore might be the Chief Warlock, yes, and he was continuing to insist Voldemort was back, which Fudge didn't want him to do...for some reason. But, Dumbledore didn't actually have a vote on the Wizengamot, the allies he could organise to oppose Fudge weren't really that many. Amelia was, Ellie thought, the _far_ bigger threat — and Lady Scrimgeour and Lord Eirsley and Lady Monroe — but they seemed to be focused on Dumbledore.

And on Ellie.

For _some_ reason. It was completely unfathomable.

She could only assume they thought putting pressure on her was also putting pressure on Dumbledore, which... _almost_ made sense? Like, sure, she and Dumbledore were still associated in the public consciousness, and they _were_ both saying Voldemort was back...but they weren't nearly as close as people thought they were. They never had been, but _especially_ not recently.

Honestly, she...just didn't like Dumbledore that much. He _meant_ well, but...

She was closer to Amelia, really — she'd even changed her proxy once she was old enough to someone who'd vote with Common Fate, she wasn't even _politically_ allied with Dumbledore anymore. But neither were she and Amelia close enough for going after Ellie to be going after Amelia. It didn't make any sense.

Turning the odd, confusing nature of Fudge's politics over in her head, she came to the door to Umbridge's office in something of a daze. She knocked, waited to be invited in before opening it, politely closing it again behind her.

Ellie had a complicated history with Defence professors, so she'd actually seen this office as it had been under all four previous instructors they'd had. Umbridge had certainly made it its most...colourful. (Unless she counted all of Lockhart's portraits, which she didn't. Damn creepy, that.) Every bit of furniture, desk and cabinets and side tables, had been covered with cloth, smooth and silky, trimmed along the edges with lace, all in whites and purples and pinks. Where these flat surfaces weren't taken up with books or parchments or framed photographs were vases bearing flowers, carefully preserved for longevity, an entire wall covered with ornamental plates, clearly not intended to be eaten off of — the rims chased with delicate weaves of gold, the centres displaying little fluffy kittens.

The kittens were, Ellie noticed, _animated_ — which was interesting, those had to be glazed ceramic, and that was a _pain_ to enchant. They were bouncing around and playing, batting around little feathered toys, darting into neighbouring plates to pounce at each other. One of them, mostly white patched with gold, a little black ribbon tied around its neck with a bow, was stretching as Ellie watched, its little feet clenching and unclenching on the illustrated carpet...

"Miss Potter?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, Professor." She turned to find Umbridge seated behind her desk, still in the brightly colourful, flower-patterned robes she'd been wearing at dinner. "I was just looking around, I must have trailed off for a moment there. The kittens are _very_ cute, I'm sorry." She thought the office was rather pretty overall, though she couldn't say she would have picked the colour scheme herself. Too much pink.

She was _almost_ getting flashbacks to Puddifoot's, which was _not_ pleasant. She preferred not to remember her absolutely _disastrous_ first and only date with Cedric if she could help it — and not just because he was gone now, it'd been very awkward and very humiliating, just a terrible idea from the off. Thankfully, he'd agreed they worked better as just friends, because, _yeesh_. Anything that reminded her of Puddifoot's was a _no thanks_ in her book.

The flowers and the kittens were nice touches, though.

For just a second, Umbridge looked taken aback. (Did other kids she'd had in here not like the kittens? But they were _adorable!)_ And then, her eyes slightly narrowed, her lips shifted into that familiar, sickly-sweet smile. A fake smile, in this particular case... _suspicious_. Of what? Did she think she had some kind of agenda, saying the kittens were cute? What did Umbridge think she could _possibly_ have to gain from something like that?

Umbridge had been in Slytherin, she'd heard, which did kind of explain it. But Ellie simply didn't have the head for Slytherin mind games, she couldn't even begin to guess what was going on in there.

After a brief second of smiling, she said, "Well, have a seat." She nodded toward a table near her desk, where waited a piece of parchment and a narrow black quill.

Ellie obeyed, taking in the flowers arranged in the vase on the little table as she sat. They were quite pretty, she thought. She recognised the lily and the petunia instantly, for obvious reasons, one a striking orange and the other a soft purplish-white. The others were also purple-adjacent, though rather more reddish...oh, she knew this, what was it... Geranium! They were geraniums, okay.

...Wait a second. Orange lily, petunia, and geranium — hatred, resentment, and stupidity? Huh. That _had_ to be intentional...

By the way Umbridge's smile turned wider, sharper, Ellie suspected she knew the message had been received. (If only Ellie knew what it was supposed to _be_ , exactly...) "Now that I have you here, you are going to be doing some lines for me, Miss Potter."

Despite herself, Ellie was a little surprised. She knew Umbridge couldn't _really_ have had anything _too_ unpleasant in mind, but... _Lines_? Really? Okay... "Yes, Ma'am. What am I writing?" she asked.

Umbridge smiled, sweet and self-satisfied, mocking. " _I will respect my elders_."

Ellie felt her eyebrow twitch, wanting to form a Snape-ish look of unimpressed amusement, but she managed to restrain herself. "Yes, Ma'am." She picked up the quill sitting on the little table — it felt _weird_ , all cold and tingly and...slimy. It didn't quite feel like she was sensing some kind of spell on it, but she couldn't imagine what else that could be. "Oh, um..."

"You won't be needing any ink." Umbridge sounded like she was trying to hold in a giggle.

...Okay. Because _that_ wasn't creepy at all. Pushing back her remaining unease, Ellie straightened the parchment quick, wrote the sentence out in methodical, smooth cursive — if she was going to be forced to write the same thing over and over, she might as well use the opportunity to work on her penmanship.

Once she finished the phrase, the instant the nib of the quill lifted from the page, there was a flash of dark magic, ice slashing through her hand. Ellie hissed, twitching at the pain, then relaxed as it vanished an instant later. That was...odd. There _was_ some kind of curse on this quill, apparently. The chill of dark magic had faded, so it clearly wasn't a lingering effect of any kind. A pain hex, maybe? It hadn't really felt like one, but Ellie was particularly sensitive to dark magic, her experience of minor hexes tended to be unusual. For example, she'd gotten hit with a nightmare curse in dueling practice once, and it'd made her feel exhausted and depressed and _very_ cold — she hadn't felt the intended terror at all. So, maybe it was supposed to be a minor pain hex of some kind, but she only felt the chill of the dark magic, because Ellie was weird.

She glanced up at Umbridge quick — the professor was watching her, smug but also somehow expectant, as though waiting for Ellie to object. Though, Ellie wasn't even surprised. Making someone do lines with a quill that hurt them every time was closer to the sort of thing she'd been expecting.

So, shrugging it off, Ellie turned back to the parchment. _I will respect my elders_. She sucked a breath through her teeth at the splinters of cold shooting through her hand, but probably quietly enough Umbridge hadn't heard it.

 _I will respect my elders._ Ellie's cheek twitched, but after a couple times she was starting to get used to it already.

 _I will respect my elders_.

 _I will respect my elders_.

And so on, and so on.

There was something odd about this ink, Ellie thought. It was a deep red, darker than red ink was usually made, and...thicker, somehow. Over a dozen lines in now, and the one at the top was still shiny and wet, not sinking into the parchment as easily as ink should. Her pinky bumped the tails of a couple of her Ps and her Ys, the little turn she put on the final S, and it was smearing a little, which didn't _normally_ happen.

Though, that could be because her hand was getting a little stiff already. Not from writing too much, she hadn't been at it _nearly_ long enough for that to be a problem yet. It wasn't a tired kind of stiff, but a _cold_ sort of stiff — like when she'd been out in the winter too long, her fingers going numb and clumsy. It wasn't _that_ bad yet, just enough to make her cursive look slightly sloppier, her hand rubbing against the parchment when it shouldn't, the chill lingering longer and longer after each line, tingling and stinging.

After twenty-five lines, Ellie took a breath for a moment, dropped the quill to try to rub some warmth back into her hand. As she'd expected, her skin wasn't cool to the touch. Her hand wasn't _actually_ cold, the repeated exposure to dark magic just sort of felt like it to her. Resolving herself with a long, thin breath, Ellie got back at it.

How many times was Umbridge going to make her do this? She hadn't given Ellie a number to shoot for, she'd assumed the professor would cut her off at some point — which did make sense, she thought, since people wrote at different speeds going for a duration of time instead of a number of repetitions was logical — but she didn't know how long she'd be able to keep writing. It wasn't that bad yet, but she was certain it'd only get worse, and _eventually_ her hand would be too numb to form the letters. It wouldn't do permanent damage, she didn't think. She'd been fine a half hour after that nightmare curse, and that had been... _awful_ , she'd never felt that cold in her life, she'd been half-convinced she was dying for a bit there. But she'd been completely useless until she had recovered, presumably a similar thing would happen with her hand now. She wouldn't be able to write for the whole hour, or however long Umbridge intended to keep her.

Also, it was actually starting to hurt.

It started as just a numb sort of stinging, a lingering echo after the flash of cold — sort of similar to being swept with an icy breeze, actually. But with each pulse it built, a sharp, cold pain focused on the back of her hand, growing worse and worse with each line.

It wasn't until she made out the shadow of the words, _I will respect my elders_ , faint, blurry lines hardly visible on her pinked, irritated skin, that Ellie realised what was happening.

She wasn't writing with ink. She was writing with _her own blood_.

Her stomach churning with nausea, Ellie closed her eyes for a moment. She took a long breath, her throat thick with sick and a numb sort of horror. And then she put the nib of her quill to the parchment again.

_I will respect my elders._

_I will respect my elders._

_I will respect my elders_.

And so on and so on, again and again.

Ellie tried not to see the lines of script, her handwriting growing gradually more shaky as she went on, not at all helped by not looking directly at what she was doing. But it didn't do any good, the letters of blood, dark and vibrant and shimmering, burned in her vision, she couldn't _not_ see it, the unavoidable knowledge of what she was looking at sinking in, much as it sank into the parchment, slowly, bile crawling up her throat, Ellie started feeling shaky and sweaty and sick.

She hated the sight of blood. She always had. Her own wasn't _nearly_ as bad as someone else's, but she still... She hated it, it made her ill.

(And scared, if she was being honest, a black, animal sort of horror, but she tried not to be honest about it. Mostly because it was just kind of pathetic. It was only blood, honestly, it wasn't like it was _hurting_ her...)

At some point, after she didn't know how many lines — she'd stopped counting a while ago — she came to a spot where there were already spots and smears of blood on the page. She blinked in confusion, before realising her hand was leaking. She could hardly even feel it anymore, almost too cold and stiff to write properly, the back of her hand so cold it burned, like a knife made of ice pressed against her skin. The words had been carved into her, from just between the knuckles of her pointer and middle fingers to around where the tip of her arm bone stuck out a little, _I will respect my elders_. The letters were weeping thin trails of blood from the corners, the angle her hand was held at writing making the first half of the sentence run down and right, toward the base of her thumb, the other half down the other side, over the curve of her wrist—

Ellie was hit with a flash of nauseating warmth, she squeezed her eyes closed. Bending to press her forehead against the desk — carefully at an angle her hair wouldn't get into the lines of blood — and took long, slow breaths, struggling to force the sick back down her throat. The cool wood of the desk felt wonderful on her hot, sweaty forehead, but the relief only lasted for a moment, and she sat there shivering, trying to work up the nerve to sit up, to keep going, but she recoiled at the idea, the blood burned into the back of her eyes, she couldn't...

"Miss Potter, are you quite alright?"

"I'm fine," she gasped, her voice thin and weak. She forced herself to sit up right, her head going fuzzy and dizzy, it took some effort to get her swirling vision to focus on Umbridge, managed to get it to settle down after a second. Still felt light-headed, though. "I'm fine, I just... I don't like blood, is all. I'm fine." Sucking in another long, shaking breath, she put the quill to parchment.

A thick, short fingered-hand snapped down onto the page — Umbridge was probably getting Ellie's blood on her hand, she realised with another shiver of hot nausea. "Miss Potter."

Ellie frowned. There was something odd on Umbridge's voice, she couldn't tell what it was, and her face was too blank to read. (Also too out of focus, but that was on Ellie.) She was rather closer than Ellie had expected too, she'd slid her chair just across from her. "Yeah?"

Umbridge hesitated for a brief moment, blankly staring back at her. "You don't look well, Miss Potter."

No, she suspected she didn't, probably all pale and sweaty and awful. "I _really_ don't like blood, ma'am."

"You don't—" Umbridge cut herself off. Her brow stitched with a narrow frown for a moment, her eyes flicking away from Ellie, clearly thinking about something. Couldn't guess what. There was _something_ going on here, Ellie had been thinking about how strange the politics of Umbridge's presence at Hogwarts was just on the way up here, not so long ago — whatever was going on in Umbridge's head was probably related to all of that, but Ellie didn't get that in the first place. Finally she jerked into motion, whipping the parchment out from under Ellie's hands, held her hand out for the quill.

Ellie surrendered it — which was more difficult than it had to be, Elile's fingers almost frozen around the damn thing — and slumped back into her chair with a weak sigh. They were done, then. Good. Ellie doubted she would have been able to keep going much longer.

She started, her eyes snapping open again, when a sharp _pop_ suddenly echoed through the room. Oh, house elf apparation. Right. Umbridge was asking...hadn't caught the name, but she was pretty sure the elf was a girl, at least — it could be hard to tell, Ellie wasn't even certain how she knew. Anyway, Umbridge was asking her for a bowl of warm water and a flannel and a roll of bandages, and also some tea. Ellie blurted out a request for ice water before the elf could pop away again, a warm drink right now would just make her queasier.

A moment later, the vase of flowers on the little desk had been replaced with a sizeable bowl of water. Umbridge took Ellie's frozen, aching hand and started mopping away the blood, with sudden gentleness that honestly rather surprised Ellie. It wasn't showing on her face at all, still cold and blank, but.

Ellie was immediately suspicious, of course — she assumed Umbridge wanted _something_ from her, she'd just rethought her approach. At least she wasn't writing anymore, though, she'd take it. She let Umbridge fuss over her hand, pressed her glass of water to her forehead, the sudden chill against her feverish skin making her shiver.

"I hadn't heard you had such an aversion to blood, Miss Potter." And what was that supposed to imply, that she wouldn't have picked this particular punishment if she'd known? Ellie wasn't so sure about that.

But that was fine, Ellie could just run with that. She was still too light-headed to think about it too hard, anyway. "I always have, but I don't really make a big thing about telling people. I'm even vegetarian and everything."

Both of Umbridge's eyebrows tipped upward in obvious surprise. Which, yeah, that wasn't really a thing to British mages — it was even possible Umbridge didn't know the word, just reasoned it out from the roots. "Really."

"Yep. Don't eat meat at all. Makes me sick. I don't even take potions that have blood in them." And _that_ was bloody strange, when she thought about it. One of the potions she'd been given after the Chamber of Secrets fiasco had made her _very_ ill, it took some experimentation for Pomfrey (and Snape) to come to the conclusion that she reacted badly to potions that used blood of any kind as an ingredient. But Ellie, obviously, hadn't _known_ the potion had blood in it, so it couldn't just be a psychological, psychosomatic kind of thing. They had no idea what was going on with that, they'd just been rolling with it ever since.

Snape had actually ended up inventing a unique variation on the Blood-Replenishing Potion — the standard one had a few drops of human blood in it, Ellie hadn't ever taken one but she assumed it'd make her _very_ ill. And it was a good thing he had, because she'd needed one after escaping from the graveyard.

Umbridge's fingers tightened on Ellie's hand, just for a second. "Forgive me, Miss Potter, but I find this very hard to believe, with the sort of messes you've been known to get into."

"Well, none of that is _my_ fault, is it? I _hate_ fighting, but what am I supposed to do when someone is messing with me or one of my friends? Just stand there and take it?" Her personal philosophy was to never start a fight herself, but if someone was fucking with one of her friends she would damn well _finish_ it — that explained all the scuffles she'd had with other students over the years easy enough. And then there were the potentially deadly situations she'd ended up in a few times since she'd started at Hogwarts, of course. She didn't go _looking_ for these things, but obviously she was going to fight back if someone was trying to kill her. It wasn't like she _wanted_ to die, come on.

"For someone so adverse to violence, you seem quite concerned with learning to duel."

Ellie sighed — that was what had gotten them here in the first place, arguing with Umbridge over the merits of practical lessons in Defence. (Apparently, a child questioning a professor like she had was disrespecting her elders, which was _somewhat_ legitimate. She guessed.) But really, she thought the problem with that was bloody obvious. "I'm the _Girl Who Lived_ , Professor." Umbridge's eyebrow twitched at the displeasure Ellie put on the title, but she didn't interrupt. "There are plenty of people out there who hate me for something that happened when I was an infant, something I can't control and don't even remember. Or, more to the point, what they _assume_ about what happened when I was infant, or what they've heard from other people about it. I'll have to deal with people trying to hurt me over that nonsense for my whole life. I don't _enjoy_ it, but I'm not in a position where I have any choice _but_ to learn to defend myself."

"The Department of Law Enforcement exists for a reason, Miss Potter."

"Yeah, to arrest and prosecute people _after_ they've committed a crime. They don't stop crimes from happening in the first place." Ellie let out another sigh. "Think about it, Professor. My cousin Dora, she's an Auror, she told me the normal response time to get someone from the D.L.E. on the scene is usually twenty to thirty minutes. Maybe closer to fifteen, for large-scale emergencies, like someone setting fire to Charing or something. And someone has to get the call to them in the first place, which can take as long as a minute, depending on the content and who's picking it up. But if someone's trying to curse you to death, it probably won't even take ten _seconds_. Calling the D.L.E. and waiting for help simply isn't a practical option, in most cases."

"Yes, that is a valid argument, all things considered." Which meant she'd been aware of that, but had been pretending as though it wasn't an issue, presumably for her inscrutable political reasons. Umbridge paused for a moment, the roll of bandages in her hand, frowning down at the table. Turning something over, clearly. After some seconds, she took up Ellie's hand again, dabbing at the cuts with a potion she'd pulled from her desk drawer before starting to wrap it up. "I wonder, Miss Potter...if you could help me with a problem I have. That the Ministry has, truly."

Umbridge was trying to be nonchalant, but she wasn't doing a great job of it — there was a sort of excited tension about her, as though she thought something very important might be about to happen. Not that Ellie had any bloody idea what. "What problem is that, Professor?"

"The Minister is concerned about what motivation might be behind...some claims Dumbledore has made lately."

She was referring to the Ministry's official denial of the Dark Lord's resurrection, wasn't she. Well, Umbridge probably expected Ellie to argue the point, but she wasn't going to take the bait. "You'd have to ask him, Professor. But, trying to get former Death Eaters out of positions of influence and hiring more Aurors and Hit Wizards isn't really out of character for him, is it? That's pretty normal for his politics, really."

It might have been her imagination, but she thought Umbridge was a little annoyed. She was smiling, but it didn't really seem like a nice smile, too fake and toothy. "I would ask you to not try to play me for a fool, Miss Potter."

"Er. How?"

"I know you and Dumbledore are close. You're not doing yourself any favours pretending otherwise."

"Um, but we're not, though." Umbridge's smile grew sharper, and she moved to say something, but Ellie jumped out ahead of her. "I know everybody talks like we are, I honestly have no idea where people get that from." Well, Ellie _suspected_ Dumbledore had allowed the association between them to form for political reasons, but she had no proof of his involvement in the development of the whole Girl Who Lived story thing. He must have made the whole thing up, but she couldn't quite draw the line between Dumbledore finding her alive in the house in Godric's Hollow and the myth everybody knows. "Honestly, Professor, I've barely had any interaction with him at all. I'd never even seen him until my first day at Hogwarts, and I could count the number of times we've spoken on the fingers of one hand."

The fake smile had vanished, a dark light of fascination in Umbridge's eyes. "Truly? I'd been under the impression the seeming distance between you two since my arrival here was for the sake of appearances."

Ellie's lips twitched with a smirk. "No, Professor, that's not some kind of scheme, that's _normal_. The Headmaster hasn't spoken to me since the end of the Tournament. Which, honestly, I'm fine with that — we don't get along very well, I find him kind of irritating." Mostly, his consistent inability to approach anything or anyone seriously, the constant "grandfatherly" condescension and the performance of aloof carelessness _seriously_ got on her nerves. "I'm not exactly chasing after a meeting or anything, put it that way."

" _Really_? I'd heard nothing like this before." There was a soft sort of glee on Umbridge's voice, almost ridiculously pleased.

"Most people assume Dumbledore and I are thick as thieves, and, honestly it's very irritating. We're not even political allies anymore, you know."

"No?"

"Not since I was old enough to control my seat on the Wizengamot myself. I'm part of Common Fate, I'm backing Amelia Bones."

Umbridge's smile dimmed somewhat — she obviously had some personal loyalty for Fudge, and while Amelia didn't like Dumbledore she didn't like Fudge either — but she hadn't slid back into her previous cold sweetness, so it was probably fine. Not that Ellie thought that made much sense.

She thought Amelia was _obviously_ the greater threat to Fudge's political career, she might even be taking over as Minister in the not-too-distant future. But okay.

Fixing the wrap around Ellie's hand closed, Umbridge was clearly turning something over in her head, occasionally shooting Ellie's face a considering glance. "If I tell you something, can I trust it won't be getting to Dumbldore or any of his people?"

So, they were _finally_ getting to the real reason Umbridge was here, then. "Yes, ma'am."

Leaning over the table a little, she muttered, "The Minister suspects Dumbledore is gathering certain individuals personally loyal to him, with the intention of overthrowing the Ministry and investing all executive power in himself. You wouldn't happen to know anything about such a nefarious plot, would you?"

...Well, she hadn't seen _that_ coming. It did sort of explain a lot, though, when she thought about it — Fudge, and Umbridge by extension, wasn't worried about the ordinary internal politics of the Wizengamot, but concerned the head of the Wizengamot might attempt to violate the limits of the power of his office. Make himself a Lord Protector in all but name, like. It wasn't a _completely_ ridiculous concern, given the history of the relationship between the Wizengamot and the bureaucracy that surrounded it.

And Dumbledore probably wasn't helping. He _did_ have a long history of meddling in Ministry business, mostly through maneuvering his people into positions of influence or persuading people to essentially work for him under the table. He wasn't the first Chief Warlock to engage in that sort of influence peddling, but it was, _technically_ , inappropriate — and he'd gotten away with more than most other Chief Warlocks could, what with his fame for his defeat of Grindelwald, and later as the most effective counterweight to Voldemort. With how his star had waned over the last decade or so, _especially_ as the commoners and the muggleborns drifted toward Common Fate, Dumbledore's political influence was slowly crumbling before their eyes. It hadn't been enough to become a true crisis of legitimacy, but Dumbledore's shrinking importance in the politics of their country was obvious to anyone who paid attention.

It wasn't... _completely_ insane for someone to worry Dumbledore might do something extreme to prevent his faction, and himself personally, from losing their grip on power. It was a surprisingly rational motivation for how Umbridge had been behaving since she'd shown up here.

So...how should she handle this? She was in a uniquely advantageous position, she thought, to influence the relationship between the Ministry and the Order with only a few words in the right ear. Personally, she'd be fine with sabotaging the Order if she could do it in a way that left Amelia the space to prepare to deal with Voldemort — that shouldn't be _too_ hard to do, if she could separate Dumbledore's political interests from Voldemort's return. (Which _should_ be easy, the two subjects really were unrelated.) She honestly thought Dumbledore's spy games were just making everything worse. Ending this pointless struggle between people who were _supposed_ to be allies would certainly be better in the long run.

But she _also_ didn't want to mark the members of the Order as all traitors either. She meant, they _were_...sort of — magical law was weird about these things, she wasn't certain they were even doing anything illegal...mostly — but their hearts were in the right place. The only thing they'd done wrong was trust Dumbledore, and even that wouldn't have necessarily been a bad decision, if Dumbledore weren't _so determined_ to convince Fudge he'd been right about Malfoy all along he came off as a bull-headed, partisan arse.

Also, she _was_ related to some of them, so, _definitely_ didn't want to see them sent to Azkaban for sedition or something.

Ellie was certain that, in ordinary circumstances, it wouldn't have been difficult for her to weave together a pretty, clean story about the whole thing, and walk that somewhat muddy and contradictory line. But she was slightly delirious from the dark magic and jittery from the blood, she worried she wasn't quite thinking straight.

Oh, well. "I'm sure you've heard of the Order of the Phoenix, Professor."

Umbridge's eyes went wide. "I have, of course. Are you suggesting they were never disbanded?"

"They were, but it's been reactivated recently. I was in the room when Dumbledore decided he would start it up again, actually, it was right after I'd told him about my kidnapping."

With a little, high, breathy huff, a scowl crossed Umbridge's face. "If this is all a ploy to spin your story of—"

"Professor," Ellie muttered, consciously keeping her voice low and even, "no matter what you think of what Dumbledore has been saying about the events of that night, you must admit there is absolutely no doubt that I was abducted and tortured _by someone_. Cedric Diggory was murdered _by someone_. Those facts are not in dispute."

Umbridge stared at her for a moment, her eyes narrowed in a considering frown, fingers idly tapping at the table. "Miss Potter, do you not believe as Dumbledore does?"

"If you mean to ask if I believe starting a feud with the Minister and three-quarters of the Wizengamot is the best way to hold accountable the people who killed Cedric and nearly killed me, no, I don't."

"That's not what I asked, Miss Potter."

"Respectfully, Professor, it doesn't matter. I want to see the people responsible for what happened that night brought to justice. Exactly who they are doesn't change that one bit."

For some reason, Umbridge actually seemed a little surprised, her eyes going wide again. She watched Ellie for a moment, though not quite looking at her, her eyes going slightly out of focus — turning something over in her head, no idea what. Ellie got the feeling that, over the course of this conversation, she'd completely shattered the image of the _Girl Who Lived_ Umbrige had had in her head, badly enough the politician had to reevaluate all kinds of things. "That is a very...practical mindset, Miss Potter. Did the Hat offer you Slytherin, by any chance?"

Ellie almost laughed. "Ah, no. It did consider Ravenclaw for a second, but no. No offence to your old house, of course, Professor, but I really don't think I would have done too well in Slytherin. I'm too stubborn, you see."

"Of course," Umbridge agreed, smiling. "So, the Order of the Phoenix."

"Yes, the Order." How to say this? "I can't really tell you much of what's going on exactly — I'm too young, you see, they don't invite me to meetings. But I have talked to some of the members, and... Their hearts are in the right place, Professor, they think they're doing what is necessary to oppose the Dark Lord, and maybe risking their lives to do it. I think you and I can both agree that potentially sacrificing everything to stop radicals seeking to throw our country into chaos is an honourable thing."

Umbridge nose scrunched, just a little, as though smelling something unpleasant, but she didn't interrupt. Which Ellie had expected, however prone to pureblood chauvinism she could be — Umbridge's loyalty was to the Ministry and the Wizengamot, which Voldemort was indisputably a threat to.

"Most of the people in the Order, their only fault is trusting the wrong person. And, they're not the only ones, a _lot_ of people trust Dumbledore. But Dumbledore is making this _personal_ , a dispute between him and the Minister over his relationship with Lord Malfoy. Which honestly, Professor, is a _huge_ mistake: Lord Malfoy truly has very little to do with this, Dumbledore putting all his efforts into trying to persuade the Minister to turn on Malfoy is... _silly_. This isn't what I wanted, when I told him what happened to me. He's just making everything worse.

"What I truly worry about, even more than what might happen if the people who killed Cedric and hurt me aren't brought to justice, is what might happen if Dumbledore takes this feud too far. Blinded by his enmity with Malfoy, if Dumbledore decides to do... _something_ to neutralise him... I fear Dumbledore might act against the Minister. And the Order, because they trust him, think he knows better than they do... If we have a conflict with the Ministry on one side and someone as widely-beloved as Dumbledore on the other, it could easily escalate into civil war. That's what keeps me up at night, Professor, more than anything else."

And she wasn't even lying about that. The way it looked like to her, Dumbledore was more concerned with ensuring he was in a position to manage the response to Voldemort's resurrection than he was actually preparing the country to resist him. Badgering the Minister and playing with his little spies... He _wasn't_ helping. It was very frustrating.

"And what would you suggest we do about it, Miss Potter?"

Ellie smiled. "I give you some names, people in the Order I know are not so blinded by Dumbledore's reputation that they can't think for themselves. You get someone they respect — Director Bones, perhaps — to talk to them about what they feel needs to be done, to get them to understand the Order is not helping by setting themselves against the Ministry. That we need to work together to deal with this threat. At worst, they simply leave the Order, weakening Dumbledore's ability to do something stupid; at best, they can be convinced to act as a moderating influence within it, preventing Dumbledore from using them to act against the Ministry at all.

"What I want from you, Professor, is your word that you will work with them, and not simply arrest them. I care about some of these people, I don't want to see them subjected to Azkaban simply for following their conscience."

Her face coming over with that sickly sweet smile again, Umbridge purred, "Now, Miss Potter, you know I can't just ignore treason."

"None of them have done anything treasonous _yet_ , Professor. The entire point is to prevent Dumbledore from talking people, _good_ people, into doing something unforgivable."

The smile vanished, Umbridge once again fixing Ellie with an empty, thoughtful sort of stare. Going almost unnaturally blank and still, her expression gave very little away, as she thought, one finger slowly tapping at the rim of her teacup.

But she didn't need to give anything away, Ellie already knew Umbridge would take the offer. She could only hope the Ministry toady would be smart about it.

(Hopefully Ellie could get through the rest of this conversation quickly — she could really use a nap...)

* * *

Youko fled.

She didn't think about it. It was automatic, animal instinct reinforced over the course of these last months. Once she started moving, it was like the breaking of a dam, and she didn't stop. She put her back to Goryou — the mass of travellers, dozens and dozens, some trampled and some slashed to ribbons, heaps of flesh and rivers of blood, the rent corpses of the monsters she'd killed, the soldiers now streaming through the gates (after the danger was passed, damn _cowards_ ) — and she ran.

And she ran.

And she ran and she ran and _she ran_...

She ran past groups of travellers, scattered here and there at the sides of the road, those who had fled at the appearance of the _kochou_ in the sky, enormous beasts of talon and claw falling from above, all they could do was flee. (Youko couldn't blame them, really.) Some called out to her, she didn't hear the words, one woman even reached out to her, but she danced away, and she _ran_...

Soon, she left the crowds behind, she was alone, and still she ran, the fields around the city starting to turn rougher, the trees swiftly approaching. The sky turning to fire at her back, the sun falling below the horizon, and still she ran.

She came to an intersection, one which she and Rakushun had passed through, what, an hour ago or so. She didn't hesitate an instant, turned away from Goryou and also the road they had come here by, instead to the north, and she ran. A little bit slower, now that she had come so far — a glance over her shoulder showed no sign she was being followed — but she didn't stop, she _couldn't_ stop, she had to keep running.

She was in the clear. She would be okay. She wasn't being followed. Those soldiers, even if they'd _wanted_ to hunt her down, they probably couldn't just now — with the mess the _kochou_ had made of those people outside the gates, before Youko had managed to kill them all, no, they would be stopped. She'd been out of sight for some time now, and the roads here were solid enough she wasn't leaving any tracks, certainly none that would be clear enough to follow in the night. Even if Rakushun told them which way they'd come from, they shouldn't have any reason to suspect she'd retrace their steps, and she'd turned off that road anyway. They wouldn't know where to look for her.

She was fine.

Even if Rakushun told them everything he knew about her, what good would that do them? The level of technology in this world, they didn't have photographs here. What could he tell them, that they were looking for a teenage girl with red hair, dressed as a boy, carrying a sword without a scabbard? They'd already known all that, and she'd passed through towns undetected well enough more than once so far. Rakushun couldn't give them any details that would help them identify her more than they already could.

And, he probably wouldn't tell them anything anyway. He wouldn't want to incriminate himself, any more than he had to.

How long had it been, since she'd arrived in this strange world? It must be a few months now, certainly. She'd been plucked right out of her school, by a strange man calling himself her servant, flown away on the back of a talking wolf... _thing_ , through some weird magical portal formed by the reflection of the moon on the sea, whatever the hell _that_ had been. Here to this other world, an impossible world that seemed quite a bit like ancient China, but also not really, with magic and monsters and who knew what else — because _of course_ there would be monsters, and _of course_ they'd make a point of trying to kill her in particular, because apparently Youko's luck just worked like that lately.

After crashing in the woods — after Keiki, the big blond jerk who'd dragged her here, had abandoned her in the middle of nowhere all by herself — she'd wandered into a nearby town...and promptly found herself _under arrest_. Because, _apparently_ , being dragged off to this other world, through no fault of her own, just being where she wasn't supposed to be, this was a serious enough of a _crime_ , _apparently_ , that it called for the _death penalty!_ They were going to, just, chop of her head! She hadn't _done_ anything...

She thought she should maybe feel bad about those wolf monster things showing up and eating the people ferrying her off to the local magistrate, but given they wanted to _execute_ her, she really didn't.

Clearly, she couldn't go to what passed for the proper authorities in this place, and she had no idea where to find Keiki so she could make the _bastard_ bring her _home_. Instead she'd just...wandered. Aimlessly, avoiding people as much as she could, stealing local clothes to wear (her school uniform _had_ been conspicuously foreign), food to eat, when she could get it. And as she wandered through plains and forests and hills, she fought.

The monsters came for her, constantly, night after night after night, and Youko would fight them off, from sunset to sunrise. At least Keiki had given her a sword and the means to use it before running off (the ass), she'd surely be dead now if she'd been forced to protect herself from those things unarmed. She didn't know _why_ the damn things kept trying to kill her. It wasn't normal, to be hounded by them constantly the way she was, both Rakushun and Takki before him had said as much. And if the natives of this world couldn't explain it...

Eventually, after she wasn't certain how long, she'd collapsed — wounded and starving and exhausted. Done. For a moment, she'd been certain she was about to die, there at the side of the road, alone and forgotten.

And Rakushun had found her. He'd brought her home, and nursed her back to health.

(She'd be dead without him.)

She hadn't thought he was a person, at first. He looked like nothing but a big rat waddling about on its rear paws, covered in thick grey fur, his beady black eyes only coming to a little above her waist. But he spoke, with the voice of a child, lived in a house with furniture and crockery and _books_. Rakushun was surprisingly learned, actually — she'd gotten the vague feeling he was older than he appeared, the way he knew so many things about far-off places (in _this_ world, he knew nothing about the world she was from), how clever and perceptive he was, the way his mother (who was human, which was weird) had just let him leave with her, off to an entirely different country.

He was a smart guy. He wouldn't risk bringing too much attention onto himself, incriminate himself for aiding a fugitive. No, he was too smart for that.

She was still surprised, when she thought about, that he'd decided to travel with her. The countries here were _huge_ , it took _months_ to travel between them, it wasn't something ordinary people did on the regular. And yet, Rakushun had dropped everything, to go with her to En. He wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart, of course — people like him couldn't get into higher education in this country, Kou, but in En? In En people like him were allowed to study, much as people like her weren't hunted down like dogs, were even recruited into government at the highest levels, he'd admitted he'd dreamed of going to En for some time. But still, he'd offered to show her the way, and paid for room and board, and...

And...

Youko's steady jog trickled down to a walk, before she finally stuttered to a halt. True night had fallen, the stars peeking out of the black, still warm from the heat of the day, the scent of flowers carried on the soft breeze, the chirping of insects ringing in her ears. The thought occurring to her, slowly at first and then more and more, the weight increasing, like a ball of ice growing in her chest, until her breath was thick and hard...

Was Rakushun okay?

She... She _thought_ so. Before the soldiers had started streaming out of the city, she'd caught a glimpse of grey fur, matted with blood, but... She hadn't gotten a good look, but it was _possible_ it hadn't been his blood. There had been a _lot_ of injured people, and he'd been caught up in it, it might have been from someone else, from one of the _kochou_. He might...

She grit her teeth — how many minutes had it been, and it hadn't even occurred to her to wonder if Rakushun had been injured until just _now_? What was _wrong_ with her...

 _Go back_. She should see if he was okay, at least. Just, _check_ , make sure he was alive, or pay her respects if he wasn't, and then she could flee again. She could fight off the soldiers, if she really had to, just to know...

 _Too dangerous_. She could only fight off so many, if they surrounded her, hundreds of them, how many could she fight off, really, before one of them got in a lucky shot? Besides, what good would it do? Even if she did go back and find him, what was that supposed to accomplish?

 _You have the jewel_. Her hand went unconsciously to her pocket, tapping the fist-sized gemstone through the cloth.

The sword Keiki had given her before his vanishing act — very fancy-looking, the hilt accented with gold and rubies and the blade shimmering silver-blue, never bent and never dulled — had once had a scabbard, attached to it a jewel. Just holding it, she felt warmer, and softer, her hurts lesser, just holding it whatever injuries she had healed more quickly. The thing had been a lifesaver, she assumed that was why she'd been told to not separate sword from scabbard — she'd lost the scabbard, but slicing the jewel off and carrying it worked just as well.

It wouldn't be _entirely_ pointless, going back. If Rakushun was injured, she could help.

Assuming he was injured. And not already dead...or in custody for collaborating with a fugitive _kaikyaku_.

Getting arrested and having her head taken off wouldn't do _either_ of them any good.

_Is your life truly so precious to you?_

Why shouldn't it be? It wasn't like she had anything else to concern herself with anymore.

_All he's done for you, and here you go stabbing him in the back._

He hadn't done it out of the kindness of his heart, he'd had his own interest in the matter. There wasn't really anything tying him to her. He would have betrayed her eventually, everyone here always does. This was a world where nobody asked anybody for anything — not their fellow man, not the government, they hardly even prayed to their gods. If a time came he saw a benefit to stabbing _her_ in the back, he would have. Like Takki or the old man at the inn before him, they all do, given time.

_So what if he had something to gain? He still helped you when you needed it most. And just because he had every reason to want to go to En too, it's okay to abandon him to die at the first opportunity?_

_Is that the kind of person you want to be?_

Youko bit her lip, frowning sightlessly into the shifting nighttime shadows of the forest.

There had been so many injured, so many dead and dying. Had she become someone so cold, so hard, she could see something so horrible, so many suffering, and be entirely unmoved? Even when someone she knew was involved, someone who had helped her, had _still_ been trying to help her... She wasn't a doctor by any means, but she had two working hands, and one rock with inexplicable magical healing powers. She could do _something_ to help, even if it was only a little. Shouldn't she...

_There's no reason to put on this show of morality now._

A show...

She'd put on a show all the time, back home. She'd tried to be what everyone around her wanted to be, all the time, as much as she could. The perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect friend. She hadn't realised how _fake_ it had all been until she'd come here, seen it all, the performance that had been Youko Nakajima, all of it stripped away...

But it wouldn't be a _show!_ People were moved to do that sort of thing for a _reason_. Those sentiments, they were _real_ , they weren't just...

How could she forget that? What was _wrong_ with her...

"Even now — after all that has happened, after all you've done — even now you still cling to _sentiment_ , little girl?"

Shock like a knife at her throat, Youko jumped, her sword whipping around to point behind her shoulder. She grit her teeth, glaring at the source of the voice, pale blue fur faintly glowing in the night.

_Even now, little girl! Even now!_

Out of all the monsters she'd encountered since she'd arrived here, she thought this monkey might be the one she hated most. It had never attempted to hurt her, or at least not physically. Instead it followed her, and it spoke, in its high, grating, teeth-grinding voice, only spoke — her own doubts, her fears, her hatred, her insecurities. Everything that ate away at her on the inside, this _thing_ made real, put words to it, dragged them out into the light of day where she could no longer pretend they didn't exist.

There had been a time, wandering alone in the wilderness, that she'd almost come to appreciate the monkey's presence. She was alone, she had no one, she'd gone _weeks_ without seeing another human being, speaking to anyone. The monkey, as unpleasant as it was, had been the only companionship she'd known. Until she'd noticed she could hear it even when it wasn't there, sick slithery whispers at the back of her head, and she'd started thinking in its voice, cold and cruel and...

She didn't like what this thing was turning her into. The thoughts she had, she scared herself sometimes.

"If that's what you want, fine." The monkey smiled, dark eyes sparkling, flat teeth shining in a demonic grin. "Go back and finish him off."

Youko jumped again, the tip of her sword dipping toward the ground.

"That _was_ what you were thinking, eh? And look at you, prettying up the black in your heart with your blithering about _sentiment_. You! Even now!" The monkey threw back its head and cackled, long and high, the piercing noise bouncing up and down, ringing through the night.

"No."

No, she wouldn't do that. She _wouldn't_. That wasn't it, it wasn't just a show, she'd meant... Rakushun hadn't deserved...

"That's not it."

"Oh, I think it is. I think that's _exactly_ what you were thinking."

Youko shook her head, rather more unsteadily than she would like. "I wouldn't do something like that." She hadn't hurt anyone, not yet — all the countless monsters she'd killed, she hadn't yet harmed a _person_. She didn't doubt that she would, if she was given a good reason to, to defend herself, but Rakushun hadn't done anything to her. Nothing worth killing him over, certainly.

"Don't be foolish, little girl, of course you would."

"No! I could never!"

The monkey laughed again, pointed canines catching the starlight. "Is that because the thought of committing murder so violates these principles of yours, or because you just don't have the guts to follow through? Still squeamish are you, even now? Ha!" The monkey let out a high screech, more animalistic braying than a human laugh. "Don't believe me, do you, little girl? That's okay. You'll manage it next time."

"Never!"

The monkey laughed, on and on, the sound of its ruthless humour stabbing into her ears, grinding into her skull, the skin at the back of her neck crawling. The accusation sinking in, because this was only a reflection, the monkey simply spoke her own thoughts back to her, she knew this — this was a caricature of her _own_ ruthlessness given life, cruel and cold and...

"I'm going back."

"Why bother? He must be long dead by now."

"I don't know that." And it only knew what she knew, her twisted evil reflection, just because it said it didn't make it true. He could still be alive.

"And so what if he is alive? You show yourself to all those soldiers only to get captured and killed? What would be the point?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm going back." Turning on her heel, the monkey firmly to her back, Youko started walking. The gates would normally be closed after dark, but with all the injured on the road...

"Hmm, I suppose. Gotta do _something_ about all that nasty _guilt_."

The words slicing through her, she froze.

"Oh, yes, this is good, I understand. You go and find the rat's broken body, feel all sorry, have a good cry about it. Why, you might even convince yourself you never considered murdering him at all!"

Youko turned, slowly, to stare at the monkey — still crouched at the side of the road, laughing and laughing and laughing. It spoke with her own voice, she'd realised this some time ago, those thoughts hidden and unacknowledged. She was talking to herself, nothing more.

Had she really become something so, so... Was this sick, _wretched_ thing, was she truly...

"He will surely betray you, little girl. They all do in time. Best go back and finish him off before he can, hmm?"

Without really thinking about it, Youko stepped toward the monkey. Her hand clenched about the hilt of the sword, shaking, so tight her knuckles ached. "Shut up."

"The soldiers are probably already on their way! The rat ratted you out, for sure!"

"Shut up!" Youko darted forward, the blade slashing in at the monkey's neck—

The bush behind it shuddered, leaves and twigs raining to the ground. It had vanished.

"Still so naïve, little girl." She spun on her heel — the voice had come from behind her. There it was crouched in the middle of the road, leaning on its knuckles to smile up at her, that damn, nightmarish smile. "Running away to let him die is one thing, but doing the job yourself is quite another. Next time, then. The _next_ time the moment comes, you'll do it then."

"Quite fucking with me!" Youko struck at the monkey, but it whirled away again, the blade sinking into the packed earth of the road.

She wouldn't kill Rakushun for, for— On the _off chance_ he _might_ do _something_ to make getting to En harder for her, no, she wouldn't kill someone for something so small as that! And what if she had? What then? That shame she felt now, for leaving him behind — for making it so far before it even occurred to her to wonder if he was okay — surely it would be so much worse if she had, what, betrayed him before he could do the same to her? If she'd _murdered_ him, no, she would feel _awful_ , that, she couldn't do that, she _couldn't_.

Her life was all she had, yes, but there were certain lines that she wouldn't cross. What would be the point of going on, if she allowed herself to become something so wretched, so, so _miserable_?

"I'm glad I didn't kill him." The words came slow, soft, barely a whisper. But even so, she felt the certainty behind them as they left her lips, something warm and hard building in her throat.

The thought had occurred to her, yes. Fine. Fine, she could admit that. (The monkey only repeated her darkest thoughts back at her, after all.) For a moment, after the _kochou_ were all dead, before the soldiers started pouring out of the city. She'd seen Rakushun, not far away, still and small, so small, and she'd thought... It'd been a fleeting thought, and she hadn't truly considered it _that_ seriously, she'd fled before she could. But she was glad the fight had carried them so far apart, she was glad she hadn't the opportunity to act rashly, to do something unforgivable in a moment of blind madness.

If she had killed him, she would never be able to forgive herself, she knew.

The monkey cackled. "So you're just going to leave him behind to tell the soldiers everything?"

"And why not?!" The words came out slightly choked, the pressure in her throat crawling up, hot and thick. The stars above shimmered, distorted by tears burning in her eyes. "Let him. Let him complain about me to whoever will listen, look at me, I've certainly given him plenty to complain about! I hope he does! The trouble I've given him, he's earned it!"

"So naïve, little girl, so naïve..."

What was _wrong_ with her? Why couldn't she trust anyone anymore? Why didn't she trust Rakushun, after all he'd done? If he'd wanted to betray her, there had been far easier moments to have done it in — that week or so she'd barely been able to _stand_ , maybe! Rakushun had been perfectly upfront about who he was, what he was thinking, what he wanted, he hadn't hidden any of it. She hadn't had any real good reason to believe he'd been being disingenuous, at any point, it made _more_ sense to believe he was exactly who and what he seemed. And yet she'd suspected him of duplicity at every turn, jumpy and defensive, and...

Why had she been so determined to believe the worst of him? Why couldn't she just take him for what he was?

"You better be careful with credulous thoughts like that, little girl. If you had trusted him, all the easier for him to take you for a ride."

"So what if he did?"

The monkey laughed, its screeches echoing in the night. "What a foolish child you are! Really? Being played for a fool is just fine with you?"

"If that's how it has to go, yes." With all Rakushun had done for her, if he needed to tell the soldiers whatever to get himself out of trouble, or for a reward, so be it. She would be dead if not for him. She owed him. And besides, "These people, they're cowards. Lying and sneaking, then stabbing me in the back when I'm not looking, they're pathetic. I'd rather be betrayed over and over than sink to their level."

She didn't want to be like that. That wasn't what she was, it _wasn't_.

"The traitor is a coward, yes, but in this world of demons and monsters and thieves, it is the traitor who comes out on top. That's what kind of place this is. Nobody here will show you the slightest, worthless bit of kindness, little girl. Such people do not exist here."

"Maybe they don't." Though Rakushun had, he was proof of the contrary, wasn't he? "Even so, that has nothing to do with me."

So she was hunted, by men and monster, pursued like an animal to be slaughtered. Should she leave her own humanity behind? So she'd been burned once by Takki, again by the old man. Should she push away people whose good intentions she had no reason to doubt — those syrup peddlers that time on the road, and then Rakushun? So Rakushun had had his own reasons to want to go to En, his motives in traveling with her hadn't been purely altruistic. Should she have braced herself for a knife in her back since the moment she'd met him?

"No," she muttered, her voice thick and harsh.

If the people of this world would show her not the slightest, worthless bit of kindness, was that reason enough to meet them with nothing but distrust and hostility?

The tears were spilling down her cheeks now, but she was smiling. Thin and harsh and shaky, but smiling all the same. "No. No, it's not."

She might be betrayed, but that didn't mean she must betray. She might be treated with cruelty, but that didn't mean she must be cruel. She was alone in this world, she had nothing and no one, nobody cared for her and nobody would grieve for her when she was gone. But that made no difference. She was not what happened to her, she was not what others did to her.

She'd been manipulated by cowards, but she need not become one. She needn't abandon anyone who needs her help, just because she had been abandoned. People had harmed her, but she needn't bring harm to defenseless strangers in turn.

People had tried to murder her, yes, but she needn't become a murderer herself.

"No."

She didn't want to be that, that wretched person. She didn't want to be what this world was trying to make of her. She wanted to be better than that.

"I want to be strong."

Her hand tightened on the grip of the sword — not with the shaky desperation she had before, but firm, determined.

This world, this alien world, it could throw whatever it had at her. All its grotesque monsters, all the weight of this paranoid, bigoted kingdom's armies, all the scheming and back-biting of its poor, desperate people. It had nothing to do with who she was, none of it.

Whatever may come, Youko wouldn't let herself be overwhelmed by her worst impulses. She wouldn't let herself become something so despicable.

She noticed, suddenly, that the monkey wasn't laughing anymore.

It'd inched a little closer, its inhuman face pulled into a cartoonish scowl. Its voice had gone hard, cold, hateful, without the eerie humour it usually held, deadly serious. "You will never go home, little girl. You will be hunted and deceived and betrayed here, in this alien land. You will die."

If she died here, now, the monkey was all she would ever be. Her selfishness, and her paranoia, and her self-hatred, those demons she carried that this mocking little jester gave voice too, that would be what she amounted to, in the end.

What a sad, pathetic thing.

It would be no great loss to the world if that Youko died here and now. One of the very first times the monkey had appeared to her, she'd been thinking something of the like, hadn't she? If this was all she was, this feral child, chased by men and hunted by monsters, desperate and cruel and alone, why should she live at all? The world would be better without such a thing in it, she would be better off freed from it.

But she hadn't given in then. If she'd killed herself then, she would have died a worthless coward. If she died now, she would die a lost fool. She didn't want to surrender to it all, not now, not ever. She wouldn't.

She would go on. She would never be that scared, desperate, monstrous thing she'd nearly become. She would be better than that. If she had to scrape and struggle for another season, a year or a decade, so be it. She wouldn't give in, and she wouldn't give up.

She _wouldn't_.

Sounding almost angry now, the monkey hissed, "You _will die_ , foolish girl. You will starve, you will tire, you will lose your head, _you will die!"_

The motion smooth, almost casual, Youko turned, the tip of her sword sailing through the air. It struck something solid, her arm reverberating with the impact, before pushing through, swishing to a halt limp at her side.

With a splatter of blood, black in the night, the monkey's head dropped spinning to the ground, tumbled across the grass into the ditch, finally hitching to a stop. Its form blurred, pale blue fur dissolving into sparks, the lights soft and twinkling, a mirror of the stars above.

Youko let her head tip back, staring sightlessly at the sky, her vision still blurry from tears.

She wouldn't give up. Never.

After some minutes uncounted, she scrubbed at her face with her sleeve, shook her head. She felt strained, raw, and still all too full of...something, she didn't know. But she had to go back. Hefting her sword, she turned back toward Goryou, and—

Before hardly taking a step, she froze. Sitting in the ditch, surrounded by a patch of dark blood, something glinted in the starlight. Steel burnished a pale blue, accented with intricately carved gold, polished to a shine.

Numbly, moving without thought, Youko stepped down into the ditch. She bent over, picked it up. And she slid the sword into the scabbard, the two locking together with the faintest _click_.

Youko laughed, first just a little, but then she couldn't stop, high, breathless giggles echoing in the night.

She shouldn't separate the sword from the scabbard, huh? Well, maybe they should have been a _little_ clearer about why exactly that was such a bad idea. Might have helped, just a little.

Shaking her head to herself, Youko stepped back up to the road, and started back toward Goryou.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Umbridge's loyalty was to the Ministry and the Wizengamot] — _Headcanon here, but I think this makes a lot of sense. The second time around, Voldemort decided to work through the institutions of power in magical Britain, assuming indirect control of the established government rather than seeking to overthrow it. I imagine Voldemort's people orchestrated a vote in the Wizengamot and everything, so the transfer of power might have seemed convincingly legitimate to people who weren't in the know. As far as canon!Umbridge was concerned, her genocidal work in the collaborationist Ministry was a legitimate project of the legitimate government. This also explains why the average person in magical Britain, who wasn't somehow a target of the Death Eaters, just went along with it and continued about their ordinary business: they didn't realise anything was wrong until it was too late. (Pretty much exactly how the Nazis took over, what a crazy random happenstance.)_
> 
> _For those who recognised it, yes, that second scene is a direct adaptation of a scene in the first book (Shadow of the Moon; Sea of Shadows). It's not a direct line-by-line rewrite, I changed some things and added a bunch of stuff, using it as an introduction to what's up with Youko, but it is pretty similar._
> 
> _Those who **didn't** recognise it, don't worry about that too much. Youko is still pretty ignorant of the Twelve Kingdoms world at this point, and of course Ellie and Sirius are completely lost. You really won't need to know a fucking thing about it to keep up. Hopefully, this one scene here should be the most confusing of the bunch, and it's really included more for the character moment than anything. Which I hope got across the way I wanted? Dunno._
> 
> _Right, one more chapter, lez do this._


	2. Chapter 2

"So, I was thinking of traveling."

Sirius jumped at the unexpected statement, tearing his eyes away from the shelves all around them — little crystal balls, faintly glowing a soft blue-white, stacked up to the distant ceiling, throwing eerie, overlapping shadows in every direction — and down to her. His mouth opened a good second or two before he spoke. "Oh? This summer, you mean?"

"No. I mean, if you want to go on a quick trip over the summer, I'm up for it." Ellie still hadn't ever been out of the country — Sirius had talked about going to Aquitania or Sicily last year, but events had gotten away from them. "I meant after this prophecy business I'll maybe go abroad for a while. A couple years, maybe."

"Oh." Sirius looked slightly surprised, but over the next couple seconds his blank confusion (and the nervous tension, primed for an imminent attack) quickly disappeared behind a grin. "That's a great idea! We can definitely do that, I'm in. Er, assuming you want your endlessly entertaining and devilishly charming godfather along."

"Well, of course," Ellie said, smirking, "why wouldn't I? I'll probably invite a few friends too. I mean, I doubt they can afford taking that kind of extended vacation, but I am filthy rich — what's the point in having all that gold if I'm not gonna spend it on fun shite?"

"Believe me, I understand perfectly." She didn't doubt it — the electric guitar he'd picked up back in September screamed _it seemed neat and I'm wealthy enough I didn't second-guess the expense_. (And also _I'm a middle-aged man with insufficiently-treated depression and I don't know what to do with myself when my kid isn't around_ , but that was beside the point.) "Did you have anywhere in particular in mind, or were we just gonna drift around for a while?"

"Oh, I'm sure we'll get around, but I was thinking we'd stay in Illyria for a while."

Sirius blinked. "Aren't the muggles there in the middle of a war right now?"

"Oh my, are they? Slipped my mind. How about Caucasia, then? It's very pretty there, I hear. Or maybe just a bit south, in Armenia."

"Pretty, sure, but...isn't there fighting going on there too?" Sirius sounded slightly concerned now, his grin fading a bit.

"Bengal? Chocó?"

"Er..."

"How about Lebanon?"

"Okay, now I _know_ you're fucking with me."

Ellie smiled. "You were so tense I thought you were going to break something, you could use a distraction. You're welcome."

"Yes, thank you _ever_ so much, Ellie dear," Sirius said, voice dripping with disdain — he was smiling again, though.

Covered with a quick glance at their Unspeakable guide — they hadn't given a name, but Ellie hadn't expected them to — Ellie took a look around, trying to spot signs of a pursuer, or an ambush, but this place was too dim and shadowy to make out anything. Which just seemed _very_ inconvenient — she'd think the Unspeakables would prefer to be able to see what they're doing, but okay. "We are almost there, I think. Not going to lose your nerve on me, are you, Sirius?"

Sirius scoffed, putting a conscious swagger into his step, his cloak swishing around him back and forth. "How could you say such a thing! I think I'm offended! I've been pulling shite like this for longer than you've been alive! Just sit back, Bambi, and witness a _professional_ at— No, a legend! Witness the legend!"

"Uh-huh." Ellie rolled her eyes, turning a bit away to hide her smile.

They walked in silence for only a few more seconds before the Unspeakable came to a stop at the end of an aisle. Pointing down the aisle, in a voice completely absent of any expression — or any identifying characteristics at all, sounding completely bland and androgynous, like they were a bloody robot or something — they said, "You will find your prophecy about halfway down. Retrieve it, and return to me. Do _not_ touch anything else."

"Yeah, yeah, horrible death, I heard it already. Come on, Ellie," Sirius said, swooping into the aisle. Ellie shot the Unspeakable a helpless sort of look before following after him.

It didn't take long for Ellie to find it — she didn't bother reading the labels, just followed the subtle pull on her magic. This orb, glowing with a soft, constant light like so many others, had a label under it like all the rest, which was mostly interesting in that one of the subjects was indicated with just a question mark, her name only added later. That _did_ make sense, she guessed. Sirius had said she hadn't been explicitly identified in the prophecy, so the Unspeakables probably hadn't known it was _supposed_ to refer to her until Voldemort tried to kill her...or, at least, they'd assumed afterward it did, Sirius was skeptical that was actually a one hundred per cent thing.

Also interesting, her prophecy was still glowing, when ones that had been fulfilled were supposed to go dim. Hannah had come up with a theory — which Sirius, Remus, Emma Vance, and even bloody _Snape_ had all agreed since was plausible — that the prophecy had actually been fulfilled when Voldemort had blown himself up in '81. She wondered, how did they know a prophecy had been fulfilled? Was there some magic that did it automatically, or was it a determination the Unspeakables made, based on their own interpretation? That they'd clearly modified the label after the prophecy orb had been made suggested the _entire_ process couldn't be automatic, but maybe the spells that went into making the orbs themselves were a whole different order of thing.

Oh well, who knows. She could ask the Unspeakable, she guessed, but she was certain he wouldn't answer. Shrugging the question off, Liz picked up the orb — the glass smooth and slightly warm against her hand, tingling with magic, the enchantments holding it onto the shelf breaking with an almost tactile _pop-snap-snap_ — and stuck it in her pocket. "Right, let's go."

"Yes, let's." Sirius was still grinning from his earlier silliness, but an edge of a smirk had slipped into it — something sharp, vicious, a dark sort of glee. A very _House of Black_ expression, really.

(Ellie wasn't entirely comfortable with just how violent Sirius was, but he was a good man overall, his heart in the right place, so she tried to ignore it.)

Now that she had the prophecy, the trap fully set, Ellie herself was finally starting to get properly nervous. There had been a hint of dread hanging over her the whole way down here, of course — though, not really _that_ much worse than any time she expected a fight, to be honest, even just going into dueling practice felt pretty similar. But now there was an itch at the back of her neck, her fingers twitching, Ellie had to suppress the urge to look around, to hunch in toward Sirius, it was a struggle to act natural.

Thankfully, she didn't have to manage it for very long. Only a few more aisles down the Hall, figures loomed out of the darkness in front of them. In the dim light, the scattered shadows, it was hard to pick out the featureless blobs very well, it wasn't until they were practically on top of them that Ellie could count them. There were eight, by the hint of figures visible under their heavy cloaks a mix of men and women, all wearing bone-white masks edged with silver.

Huh. Eight? Ellie had expected more than that. Voldemort would have expected her to have an escort, at the _very least_ Sirius and one Unspeakable — Sirius was one of the more dangerous fighters on their side, really only passed up by Dumbledore, Moody, and a small handful of Aurors, and nobody could guess what any random Unspeakable might be capable of. Eight against two (two and a half, counting Ellie) were _good_ odds, but considering who they'd be up against they weren't _great_ odds.

Oh well. Eight would do. Unless they'd sent their very best, there was no way Ellie's side was losing, and they might even be able to capture them all alive. Ellie was sure Amelia would be _very_ pleased to have eight Death Eaters to interrogate.

The Death Eaters came to a halt in front of them, cutting them off from the exit. One of them, a tall man toward the middle, spoke first, in a smooth, icy voice. "Good evening, Miss Potter."

The man's voice sounded...very familiar. While she was distracted trying to place it, frowning to herself, Sirius let out a low chuckle. " _Lucy_? I didn't expect to see _you_ here. What did you do to get on the Dark Wanker's bad side?"

Losing control of the Ministry, she would guess — once she'd actually gotten the Order and the Department of Law Enforcement talking to each other, it hadn't taken very long to convince Fudge Malfoy was up to all kinds of sketchy shite with his Death Eater friends (even if they hadn't actually been able to prove the Dark Lord was back). Voldemort probably hadn't taken Malfoy's expulsion from polite society very well.

A high, angry hiss cut the air. "Show the Dark Lord some respect, Cousin, or I'll cut out your filthy tongue."

"Suck my dick, Bella," Sirius chirped.

...Oh. Crap. If _Bellatrix Lestrange_ was here, this...might not go quite so smoothly as she'd been hoping. At least they still had a numbers advantage, without even calling in their backup.

"If the children are _quite_ finished," Malfoy drawled, a clear note of irritation slipping into his voice. "Miss Potter, as much as our more...volatile companions might enjoy nothing more than to bring the Ministry down around our ears, there is no reason this must become a fight. We are here only for the prophecy."

One of the Death Eaters muttered, "Speak for yourself, Malfoy." Something about his tone was _very_ unpleasant, Ellie almost felt unclean just listening to it. (Probably Travers, sick bastard.)

Before Sirius could say anything, undoubtedly making a bloody nuisance of himself, the Unspeakable stepped forward. "There will be no such exchange. None of you are leaving here tonight." With a flick of their wrist, a thick crackle of magic shivered across the air.

In a blink, the arched ceiling far above burst into yellow-white light — not particularly _bright_ , but still enough to disperse the shadows filling the room, set Ellie to blinking against the sudden glare. In the same moment, the space around them wavered, a smear of shape and colour, abruptly resolving into a pack of people. More Unspeakables in grey and blue, Aurors in red and black, a few in the blue and black of Hit Wizards (who were actually mostly Order members). Directly opposite Ellie and Sirius, Moody demanded the Death Eaters kneel and surrender their wands.

Malfoy sighed. "Bella."

One of the figures next to him, narrower and much shorter, reached into her robes and pulled out...a glass vial. A potion of some kind? Lestrange chucked the vial toward the tile at her feet — a few of the Unspeakables cried out, wands moving, and the vial halted in mid-air, well above the floor. Before anyone could do anything more permanent about it, Lestrange cast a banishing charm, slamming it against the tile, smashed glass sent scattering.

Ellie scrunched up her nose — was that blood? An instant later there was a pulse of what was _definitely_ blood magic, dark and slimy and sickening...though not as bad as it could be, unpleasant but not overwhelmingly so, the feeling didn't even linger. Must have been a voluntary sacrifice, the difference in the tone of the magic was quite glaring (to Ellie, at least). The magic washed through the room, a faint wave of reddish light, passing over her to no obvious effect.

The space between the Death Eaters and the Ministry people behind them folded, twisted. The distance separating them even opened up a few metres — probably some kind of space-warping spell bound to a ritual, which was kind of fascinating, theoretically speaking. Ellie was only distracted by the neat magic for a moment, though.

The Death Eaters must have anticipated an ambush: they'd brought with them, hidden from detection, _at least_ another dozen wands. Probably more.

And, standing in the middle of the pack, tall and skeletal, skin smooth and pale, eyes shimmering a faint red...

_Fuck_.

Everyone moved at once, two dozen curses flying in every direction, people casting shields in blue and red and orange, or simply diving out of the way. Sirius had been one of the first to cast, a complex blasting curse lancing out from his wand even as he shoved Ellie to the side, she nearly toppled to the floor in one of the aisles. His spell hadn't been aimed _at_ anyone, striking at Malfoy's feet, blowing Death Eaters back and to the sides — shields failing as they stumbled, spells cutting into the pack — tiles broken into shards and pulverised into dust thrown into the air.

"Go!" Sirius yelled, following after her. "Change, go, go!"

Without pausing to think, Ellie cast off her human shell, like sinking into a pool of warm water and out again, her hooves hitting the floor running. She bounded down the aisle, the clacking of hooves against tile almost inaudible over the crackling of magic and the pop of air bursts from spells resolving, Sirius scrabbling and panting behind her. (Some instinctive deer-ish part of her focused on the large dog chasing after her as the greatest threat, it took some effort to ignore it.) It didn't take long to get to the end of the aisle, Ellie turned to the right.

At least she _tried_ , the tile was too hard and smooth — she'd been able to get pretty good speed, but _turning_ so quickly, no, her feet were slipping under her, no good. She changed again as she came slamming into the wall, she braced herself with her hands a little, but she still hit pretty hard, bouncing off and staggering away.

Sirius slid to an easy stop next to her, smooth bastard. "Hey, you okay?" She didn't bother answering, just took two steps into it before changing again and bounding off.

The Hall melted by around her, passing one aisle and another and another and another, the sounds of the battle angling further and further behind them. She was just wondering if they'd actually manage to slip away with none of them the wiser when three Death Eaters came spilling out of an aisle practically on top of them.

They were _far_ too close for Ellie to stop in time, so she didn't try: she slammed straight into the first Death Eater, knocking him off his feet, shifting back human-shaped as she fell to the ground on top of him. She fired off a complex stunning spell at one of the Death Eaters still standing — nothing fancy, just prevented waking him up with basic revival charms — even as a purplish spell-glow tingling with dark magic sailed over her shoulder at the other one. Ellie stunned the one she'd run into before he could recover, then popped to her feet, shifting back and bounding off again.

A short run later and they were coming up on the exit. She gave herself a bit more time to turn this time, but it still wasn't easy, her hooves skittering and squeaking against the tile. Starting up again was a pain too, damn slippery floor, but it only took a couple good pushes to get moving.

...What the hell was _that_? This room had a big tank in the middle, smokey blue-green water filled with what looked like _brains_ , with long, spiky tentacles. That was just...unnerving.

As she bounded into the room, a spell was shot off from behind her — the yellow-white of a stinging jinx, flying off to strike the frame above a door ahead to her left. Assuming Sirius knew what she was doing, she turned that direction, weaving between desks, giving the tank a wider berth than was probably necessary. (Bloody _creepy_ , that was.)

Through the door was another room, though this one thankfully rather more normal-looking, desks and tables and a few blackboards littered with runes and diagrams. Sirius gave her directions with another stinging jinx, these desks were dense enough she didn't waste time going between them, instead hopped on top of one, leapt from one to the next to the next, tossing sheafs of parchment and empty tea mugs in all directions as she went, Padfoot yipping with amusement behind her.

Another room, this one more wide open — a ritual circle of some kind, it looked like, shapes carved into the stone floor ringed with runes, probably isolation spells, bookshelves and unidentifiable tools lining the walls. Sirius fired off another stinging jinx, which stuttered oddly as it crossed the circles on the floor but made it across the room alright. Ellie didn't notice any effect from the enchantments on the floor skipping over them, must be properly—

A crackle of magic passed over her head, striking the ceiling just inside the door she was aiming for, Ellie halted, switching back to human shape to whip out her wand. A patch of the ceiling shifted into a gross-looking yellowish-green, sticky strands drooping down toward the floor — Ellie had _no idea_ what that was, but it probably wasn't safe to touch. Ellie glanced over her shoulder and—

Voldemort.

_Fuck_.

Voldemort got off one pain curse and one stunning spell at Ellie — she dodged the first and deflected the second into the ground — before curses were falling in on him from both directions, Sirius and whoever had followed him from the Hall of Prophecy. The air shaking with bursts of air, released simply from the force of curses striking shields (which was, just, unsettling, the amount of power they must have to be so forceful), Ellie slipped a little behind Sirius, reaching for her magic with a deep breath.

_Winds that bring the rains of spring, surge forth at the call of we faithful and wash away the cruel winter..._

The elemental magic took with a bone-shivering shudder, lightning crackling and snapping at Ellie's chest, the joints of her wand hand burning. A rumble of thunder shook the air, wind whipping at their robes, and rain came slashing down from the ceiling, smelling clean and green, the drops glowing the gentle silver-white of a patronus. Voldemort let out a high cry of disgust and rage — where the rain drops struck him, they sizzled and spat, steam rising from his scorching skin. He cast a nasty-looking shield, red and black twisted into hard angles, but the light-infused water drew smearing lines through the dark magic, punching through in only a few drops. The curses from Voldemort cut off as he focused on countering her elemental magic, while still defending himself from a steady stream of curses from Moody, Emma Vance, two Unspeakables, and an Auror Ellie didn't recognise.

"Ha! That's good shite, Ellie!" Sirius threw off a pale pinkish spell — a shield-breaker of some kind, judging by how one of the sides of Voldemort's shield violently shattered when it hit — but Sirius didn't follow it up, so that was apparently just for the hell of it. "Have fun with that, you snake-faced cock-sucker! Come on, let's go." Sirius led her through the nearest door into the next room, a surprisingly plain hallway lined with unlabeled doors. As soon as they were through, Sirius slammed the door closed, cast two different locking charms and a sealing charm on it, transfigured the floor just in front of it up a bit to physically hold it shut, and then cut into the ceiling, yanking down a fair bit of rubble, some of which he transfigured into steel bands crossing over the door — all in a handful of seconds, it was actually very impressive.

(With the way he usually acted, it was sometimes easy to forget Sirius was an especially talented wizard.)

They were about halfway through the hall when a door near the opposite side slammed open, a pack of Death Eaters spilling out. Ellie hit one in the lead with her light stunning charm, Sirius shot off a blasting curse — it hit a wall, stone shrapnel tearing into one of the Death Eaters before he could put up a shield, blood splattering across the floor, Ellie winced and looked away — even as he kicked open a door to their left. " _Gemmeam!"_ Leaving her orangish shield spell hanging up, Ellie darted through the door first, a few retaliatory spells crashing into her shield, Sirius leapt through after her just as it failed.

They'd stepped into a vast chamber, most of it filled with unshifting darkness, the surfaces seemingly not letting light reflect off of them (it was kind of eerie), the only features a massive model of the solar system — the sun, the planets, the larger moons, the proportions and distances messed with so everything could reasonably fit. While they ran across the empty space — they'd probably have to cast spells soon, neither bothered changing — Sirius shot her a broad grin. "We make a pretty damn fine team, you think?"

Ellie smiled, a little shakily.

Soon spells were flying at them, not really aimed as well as they could have been, splashing randomly into the darkness around them. Ellie cast another orange shield over them, flinging bludgeoning hexes and stunning charms and cutting curses in the Death Eaters' general direction. They weren't too far from the door now, but their pursuers were catching up — the perspective-screwy effects of the solid blackness in the room was just as bad for Sirius's aim as it was for theirs.

She glanced over her shoulder again just in time to see Sirius transfigure Saturn into water, which dropped to sluice over the pack of Death Eaters. Oh, she got it. She whipped her wand around, cast, " _Cumfulmine!"_ even as Sirius shouted, " _Rette!"_ Spells lanced out from both their wands more or less at the same time, Sirius's a very natural-looking bolt of blue-white lightning, Ellie's a more normal yellow-blue spellglow, though somewhat longer and narrower and quicker-moving than average. Sirius's struck first, a wave of electricity sweeping over the soaked Death Eaters, freezing them in place or throwing them off their feet, the force and noise intense enough he'd probably killed at least one of them.

Ellie's hit a moment later, the spellglow hitting one of the Death Eaters in the leg before the energy of the spell was released, yellow-white fingers of energy lancing out, jumping from one figure to the next, cracking and cutting and tearing, spreading much further than it normally would, touching all of the five or six figures before finally fizzling out. Their robes were thick enough she couldn't see most of the effects, though that one Death Eater's leg was now a twisted, mangled, bloody wreck.

She fought down the urge to gag, turned back around and kept running.

Stepping through into the next room just behind her, Sirius spat, "Son of a bitch."

They were in a sort of classical amphitheatre, rough stone carved into benches descending in tiered rows, surrounding an elevated platform in the middle. At the centre was an arch, sketching out a vaguely door-proportioned shape significantly taller than Ellie, made of ancient stone, cracked and weathered and crumbling at the corners. It appeared parts of the platform was composed of the same material as the arch, missing bits filled in with concrete to make a more regular shape when they'd moved it here — Ellie _seriously_ doubted this was its original location, the Unspeakables must have found it somewhere.

Hanging inside the arch was a black cloth, tattered and frayed. There was something unnatural about that cloth — it was _too_ black, with no variations or glare from the light or anything (rather like the room with the planets in it), save for uncountable dots scattered across it, twinkling like stars. It wafted gently — almost _too_ gently, as though gravity didn't have as much of an effect on it as it should — in the breeze that circled about the room, so soft it was barely noticeable, but _cold_ , intensely cold, though without the sharp bite of a proper winter wind. Thicker and softer, like a spring breeze, but still desperately, unnaturally _cold_...

Or, perhaps, the soft flapping of the curtain was _creating_ the breeze, pushing the air around it, imparting a chill from some incomprehensible, eldritch magics. Ellie could really go either way on that, there was something, just, _not right_ about that old bit of cloth, it was unsettling.

Though she probably shouldn't spend too long getting distracted by the thing — the room was a chaos of seven separate running duels, fleeing Death Eaters fending off Aurors and Unspeakables. Even as she watched, _more_ poured in from multiple doors at once, a pack of Unspeakables _and_ a group of Death Eaters managing to get surrounded in different areas of the room at the same time, it was such a mess.

Yeah, no thanks. Ellie turned around, heading back toward the door they'd just left, but froze before she got a couple steps. A battle had broken out in the room with the planets in the short seconds since they'd left. Ellie couldn't make out one side from this angle, but that figure there flanked by a handful of Death Eaters was definitely Voldemort himself.

Ellie turned back, looked around the amphitheatre — there wasn't a clear path to any of the doors, they were boxed in.

"Son of a bitch," Ellie agreed.

"Two o'clock!" There was a door in that direction, though there were Death Eaters and Aurors in the way. But she started moving anyway, trusting Sirius saw something she didn't.

She ran down the narrow ramp between rows of benches, gently arcing down toward the middle, they were about halfway down when one of the fights filling the room spilled out into the path in front of them. Blindly casting an overpowered bludgeoning hex at a Death Eater's back, Ellie jumped to the side, planted her feet on one of the benches, changing in mid-air, her hooves clattering onto a bench one row down, she hopped down, down, jumping quick and far enough to skip a row or two every time, the open space in the middle of the room was just—

Spellglows came in straight at her from multiple directions, she was pretty sure they weren't even intended for her, just bad luck. She was still in the air, falling, she couldn't dodge, she shifted back, magic called up with a heart-stuttering snap, " _Aigídi!"_ the silvery shield appeared just as—

The three curses hit her shield right in a row, _thud crack thud_ , her shield held but the force of the impact flung her back, crashing against the lowermost bench. She felt something in her hip pop, hot pain slashing out in thin bands. Grimacing, Elile staggered up to her feet, one hand automatically going to her side.

She blinked, glanced at her own fingers. Blood? What the...

A wavering voice, thick and gasping, " _...Power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who_ —"

The prophecy orb. It'd been her pocket, it must have been smashed against the bench. Right. Ellie vanished the shards of glass stuck in her dress (some jabbed into her skin too, probably), Trelawney's uncharacteristically heavy, rasping voice abruptly cutting off. A quick-and-dirty battlefield healing spell cooled the pain down a bit, but more importantly stopped the bleeding (hopefully, at least), a numbing charm taking care of the rest of it.

Sirius was there, hand coming down on her shoulder. "You okay?" fury and an edge of panic on his voice.

"Fine. Prophecy's gone." Ellie started moving again, limping a bit before her injured hip loosened enough to run properly.

They made it across the central area, Ellie was just jumping up to the third bench when the door they were aiming for slammed open, a tight pack of Death Eaters pursued by a couple Aurors — the one with the night-black hair limmed with flickering red was _definitely_ Dora, didn't recognise the other — Ellie staggered back, nearly toppling off the bench, managed to hop lightly one down. She glanced around the room quick, looking for a direction they could go where the fighting was thin, but they were _everywhere_ , bodies jumping and rolling among the benches in a wild, uncoordinated dance, spellglows and the crackle of fire and lightning, the shivering curves of shields, the air sang and snapped with it all, it was _everywhere_ —

They were surrounded.

Biting back the frustration (and terror) crawling up her throat, Ellie turned around, hopped down toward the flat space around the central pedestal — firing a bludgeoning hex at a Death Eater who came too close, thrown back with a sickening wet snap, his shoulder was _definitely_ dislocated at least. He wasn't moving, but Ellie followed up with a stunning charm anyway. Sirius cast a slicing curse over her shoulder, a spray of blood flying from one of the other Death Eaters cornering a couple Unspeakables, and then they were passed, Ellie ran toward the centre of the room, skidding to a stop at the bottom of the stairs up to the arch.

She pointed, but she had only gotten a couple syllables out before Sirius's wand was already moving, as though reading her mind. He conjured an arc of stone curving from a bit to their side up the stairs and down to their other side, cutting off about two-thirds of the room. As he transfigured the wall, the golden sheen of bronze quickly spreading across it, Ellie sketched a few glowing runes in the air — an enchantment for durability, an interference spell, an anchor against vanishing — cast it at the wall with a flick of her fingers. The spell took harder than she'd expected, she shook out the pins and needles in her wrist, spun to put her back to the wall.

Even cut down to a third of the room, she looked upon a messy chaos of battle, shifting too quickly for her to really keep track of. It seemed like everyone had made their way here, the amphitheatre almost too full of fighters for them to all dodge properly without bumping into each other — the Death Eaters were outnumbered, _barely_ , but they were holding their own, the sides too evenly-matched for either one to hold on to the advantage.

Where the _hell_ was their back-up?

While Sirius shot spells into the milieu, seemingly at random, Ellie ducked back, starting in on another bit of storm magic, something big enough to fill the whole room, give their side a leg up. This was her role in big battles like this, Moody said — gifted with an exceptional volume of raw magical power, there were spells available to her that weren't to most people, wide-scale magics that could limit the options of entire crowds of opponents or turn the tide of a losing fight single-handedly. Dumbledore did a similar thing, using transfiguration to corral and bind throughout the entire field, restricting his opponents so they were easy targets for his allies to pick off. Ellie, though, had a talent for high elemental magic, which was rather more flashy, rain and fire and lightning.

But also less easily exploitable: the incantations for these things were usually quite lengthy, and couldn't be shortened very easily. Ellie need a few seconds unmolested to get them off, which was often easier said than done.

Ellie was only a couple words into a storm-based mass knock-out spell when she had to cut off to move, barely dodging a sickly orange-yellow Cruciatus, a snap _protege_ catching a yellowish curse, shattering it instantly, she ducked under a blue spellglow, some kind of blood-mediated curse — couldn't tell what it did exactly, but she could feel magic that acted on blood, her skin crawling and the hair on her arms and back of her neck standing up — she deflected a blasting curse up into the ceiling, raining shrapnel down somewhere behind her, ducked and spun under a wide-angle cutting curse, coming up with a blasting curse of her own, but it was caught on a shield, jumped over another cutting curse, and leaned out of the way of _two_ torture curses at once, and—

Finally, a trio of Aurors fell on the Death Eaters firing curses at Ellie and Sirius, distracting them enough Ellie could at least take a breath without getting killed. _Christ_...

Ellie knew the moment Voldemort stepped into the room. It was almost tactile, an aura of fear tingling across the air as everyone, Death Eater and Auror and 'Hit Wizard' and Unspeakable looked in the same direction all at once, the lull in the fighting ending after only the briefest pause, taking a desperate quality to it, spells frantically cast seemingly with no rhyme or reason, the wild assault actually taking the Death Eaters by surprise, several in Ellie's field of vision falling in a handful of seconds, she and Sirius taking a few more, spells falling into their backs, but they were running out of time, the air shuddered, the cold wind somehow growing even _colder_ , an absolutely _terrifying_ volume of magic keying up behind her, Voldemort gathering himself to—

Then, with a slamming and a crashing and an explosion that had shrapnel tumbling all the way down to Ellie's feet, a section of the wall to her right was blown open, and more Aurors and Hit Wizards (real ones this time) were pouring into the room — along with a handful of people out of uniform. Ellie spotted Amelia Bones, Professor McGonagall, Rufus Scrimgeour, Bríd Ingham, Augusta Longbottom, and gracefully sweeping into the room near the front of the pack...

... _Dumbledore_.

The black dread on the air broke in an instant as their back-up _finally_ arrived, the dozen little battles going on all across the floor now _much_ more favourable to the Ministry, Dumbledore, Amelia, and Longbottom making a beeline for Voldemort himself. The battle now firmly turned in their favour, Ellie let herself relax, ever so slightly.

But the battle wasn't _quite_ over.

There was a discordant shiver of magic from behind her, she turned around in time to see the wall of bronze shudder, dissolve, progressively transfiguring into a viscous, greenish-black fluid. Ellie had _no_ idea what that shite was, but she didn't want to wait to touch it to find out — she grabbed Sirius by the sleeve and yanked him back and to the side, the torrent splashing to the floor within a metre of his shoes. Ellie tried to vanish it, but it wasn't— Of _course_ , her anti-vanishing enchantment was still in effect, _dammit_. She started transfiguring patches of it into stone instead, Sirius caught on after a second or two and took care of the rest.

The air around Dumbledore and Voldemort was shuddering and cracking, heavy enough Ellie's skull rang, bronze and glass and glimmering black stone flying back and forth around them — she skipped out of the way of a stray greenish spell from Voldemort, leaving the ground where it hit blackened and smoking. Okay, breaking line of sight would be a good idea, she pulled Sirius around a bit more, putting the arch between them and the dueling grand sorcerers.

They had a few seconds to cast a couple spells at distracted Death Eaters before a spike of dark magic appeared in the air above them, quickly falling at their heads. Ellie dove left and Sirius right, and where they'd been standing a figure in Death Eater robes fell, crashing heavy to the ground, surrounded with hissing black and red fire. The flames dissipated to reveal a woman with wild black hair, robes askew and mask missing, a weeping cut carved across her temple, thin lines of blood drawn down her face, lips pulled into a _very_ familiar grin and grey eyes dancing as her wand turned toward Ellie—

She dove out of the way before the curse even left Lestrange's wand, a spellglow lancing through where she'd been standing a second ago to slam into the benches, as quick as a blink, eerie white flames licking at the stone. Ellie brought her wand up, but Lestrange was already aiming at her again, her wand hand twisted, but then she cut the motion off, spinning on her heel almost unnaturally fast to bat away a spell aimed at her back, but Sirius had expected her to block it, he'd gotten _very_ close, punched her _right_ in the face.

Lestrange staggered with the blow, let out a high, gleeful giggle, and Sirius staggered with her, his sleeve caught with her off hand, her wand came around toward his chest, Sirius yanked back on his arm, pulling her aim off, Ellie started casting a stunning charm, but Lestrange spun down and around even as she finished, she turned her wand aside at the last second, missing Sirius by a hair—

With a twist of his shoulders, Sirius got his arm around Lestrange's neck, the tip of her wand came around to his side, he let out a yelp, jumping away—

Ellie only had an instant of warning, a wave of fire came rushing toward her, she leapt to the side, skipped up the steps toward the creepy arch, she shot off a blasting curse at Lestrange the second she could see through the smoke, Lestrange batted it into the ground near Sirius's feet, he cursed at the dust and sparks thrown by the explosion. Turning his wand on Lestrange—

He cut off, jumping out of the way of a rain of silvery darts slashing through the air at his chest. Lestrange swiped at Sirius, a cutting curse slicing in at him, but Sirius rolled, shifted into Padfoot, bounded up to Ellie in two quick leaps, turned back to throw spells back at Lestrange and the other Death Eater that had snuck up behind him, piercing curses and blasting curses and cutting curses, Ellie contributing a bevy of bludgeoners and stunning charms.

But none of them were hitting home. Lestrange and the Death Eater were working together surprisingly well — Voldemort's mad lackeys weren't exactly known for their teamwork. Lestrange was mostly focused with countering some kind of ice magic coming in at their backs, throwing the occasional curse in their direction just to keep the pressure on, while the other Death Eater mostly worked on defence. He was casting proper _palings_ — in the _middle of a battle_ , the madman — little glowing runes springing from his fingers one after the other as he countered Sirius's progressively darker and more dangerous curses.

That was a bit...intimidating. Ellie didn't think she'd seen anyone actually use runic casting in a fight, beside Emma Vance, Bríd Ingham, and Ellie herself, of course — and she'd only seen Emma doing it in practice duels, teaching it to Ellie, and Ingham in an exhibition, just to be flashy. It wasn't something people actually _did_ , unless they either had a significant background in cursebreaking or were just a little bit mad. (Ellie would admit she was the latter.) If they had to fight Lestrange _and_ someone skilled enough to use runic casting in a fight, at the same time...

This battle better be over soon, because if it wasn't she and Sirius were screwed.

Sirius let out a snarl of frustration as his nightmare curse, one of the ones that was practically unblockable, fizzled out two metres away from Lestrange's back. "B.J., you _frustrating_ fucking bastard!"

Ellie cursed — of _course_ it was Barty Crouch, god _damn_ it... She started whispering, " _Austre furēns, caelum ut effringat..._ "

The Death Eater chuckled, throwing a few more runes, the fuzzy outline of his paling firming a bit, shimmering in the air, a bevy of shield-breakers from Sirius sizzling uselessly against it. "I can help you with that if you like, Siri," Crouch said, a flirtatious lilt to his voice.

Sirius coughed, distracted for a second, scrambled to deflect another blasting curse from Lestrange. A few more curses pushed them back, Ellie tripped as her heel bumped into one of the stairs. Her concentration nearly broke, the lightning boiling in her stomach thrashing against its reins, but she clenched her teeth, hissed out the last few words, her voice rising, " _...opera hūmāna frangās!"_

She leaned around Sirius, a white bolt of light bursting from her wand with enough force she was nearly kicked back onto her arse, striking Crouch's paling in the blink of an eye. It didn't penetrate, but it didn't fizzle out either, branching into a hundred fingers of lightning spreading in every direction across its surface, Crouch scrambled to dismiss the paling, cutting off most of its energy supply, but still sparks were left hanging in the air, a thin mist flickering here and there. While Lestrange shot some more curses at Sirius, dodging a trio of flying bronze blades from the Auror behind them — Ellie could make her out now, it was Dora ( _thank god_ , they might make it out of this alive) — Crouch started casting a cleansing spell to disperse the lingering magic.

But Ellie was faster. She sketched out two runes — _seal_ in Egyptian, _mirror_ in Sumerian — the magic around Crouch and Lestrange twisting and shivering, the sparks flaring brighter with a chorus of crackling. Sirius didn't know enough about cursebreaking to have any clue what she'd just done, but he'd clearly guessed she'd done _something_ , fired off a piercing curse at Crouch. Crouch, instinctively, cast a shield.

The shield snapped into existence, then immediately flickered out, the lighting lingering in the air tearing it into useless blue and purple sparks. Sirius's aim could have been better, though, the curse nailing Crouch in the chest, but too high and too far right to be lethal. It spun him around, blood flung in an arc around him (Ellie grimaced, tried to ignore it), but he was healing himself in a blink, shaking off the pain. "If you wanted to stick me, Siri, there are better—"

Lestrange cut him off with a snarl. " _Not_ the time for flirting, Barty! This kid is fucking—" Cutting herself off, Lestrange ducked under paired spears of blue-white ice, aimed perfectly at where her head and heart had been, came up with a crackling black fire spell, which Dora smothered with this weird pink bubbly foam, which was then transfigured into pinkish-silver darts, Lestrange scattered them with a wild flail, leaving her open to a brace of piercing curses, she leaned out of the way of two and deflected the other two with a single well-coordinated sweep of her wand, retaliating with two quick cutting curses, the follow-through to either side sending blasting curses sailing off in Ellie and Sirius's direction...

Ellie managed to keep her shield-neutralising enchantment up despite Crouch's attempts to counter it, carefully corralling it to always keep the two Death Eaters covered — they couldn't cast any shields, or even anything that broke the flow of magic the way shields did. But even three (two and a half) against two, surrounded, even with a disadvantage so serious as not being able to cast _a bloody shield charm_ , they were still holding out remarkably well.

In fact, they were _still_ pushing Ellie and Sirius back! Crouch mostly focused on defence, pelting the two of them with intermittent curses, Lestrange a dizzying whirlwind of motion and magic, holding back Dora (who was a _terrifying_ duelist) while simultaneously keeping pressure on Ellie and Sirius consistent enough Ellie could hardly even keep up, it was just _insane!_ Ellie would dodge and counter and deflect as much as she could, but every curse she needed to block with a shield had her pushed back another few steps — once her ankle caught badly enough on one of the stairs, slamming down hard on her bum — Sirius pushed back with her, one step, another and another. They were moving too, Lestrange and Crouch forced to slowly retreat by Dora on their other side, but Ellie and Sirius _together_ couldn't hold them back, the spellfire too thick and wild and unpredictable and...

And Ellie was starting to get worn out, her breathing quick and heavy, sweat trickling down her back, her shoulder and wrist aching, her legs burning. How long had this battle been going on? It had to be a while by now...

And she and Sirius were running out of room to retreat.

Ellie stumbled back from another hit against her shield, and _didn't_ hitch against another stair, glanced around to see they were on the platform in the middle of the room. The arch was only a few metres away, cold and eerie and alien. Ellie was distracted for a second by the symbols carved into the arch — was that _Shang relic script_? how old _was_ this thing? had the Unspeakables really moved it here all the way from _China?_ — before turning back around, throwing whatever she could think of at the advancing Death Eaters.

She and Sirius were right between Lestrange and Crouch on one side and the arch on the other. That seemed like a _bad_ place to be.

Before Ellie could get Sirius's attention, tell him they had to _move_ , Lestrange cast a wide-angled cutting curse, an arc of orange and yellow several metres wide, lancing out toward them. Ellie, instinctively, cast a shield charm to catch it, planting her feet and gritting her teeth. Which was, in retrospect, a fucking _stupid_ thing to do.

Because Lestrange hadn't cast a _cutting_ curse.

The band of light struck Sirius's defences first, the wall of conjured stone shattering into a hundred pieces from the impact of a _high-powered bludgeoning curse_. The shards of rock pelted Sirius with a dozen punches all at once, Ellie didn't have time to react, the curse struck her shield an instant later, the force carried through it into her, practically picking her off her feet and tossing her back, she slammed against something ( _the arch_ ) hard enough her breath was let out in a harsh cough, she gasped—

Sirius was stumbling, bruised and battered by his own conjuration turned against him, still off-balance, just to her left...

... _straight toward the arch_...

Without thought, instinctively, Ellie's hand snapped out, catching Sirius's sleeve just under his shoulder, but he was still off-balance, still moving—

—he fell _past_ her—

—Ellie's shoulder wrenched, hard, she was pulled sideways—

—and she _fell_ —

—and she fell and she fell, through an empty void, endless black speckled with stars, tiny specks of white and blue and red, dancing around her, the blackness thick and heavy, crushing tight enough she could hardly breathe, but she still had a hold on Sirius's sleeve, she pulled herself toward him, and his arms were coming around her, hard and strong and warm, gripping her so tight she almost hurt, she clung back, listening to the desperate rattle of his breath, closing her eyes against the infinite night spinning around them—

The roar of surf, the scent of sea salt, wind playing with her hair.

Slowly, Sirius's shirt still gripped tight in her hands — he'd fallen through, she wasn't letting go, she'd _almost lost him_ — Ellie sat up. For a moment, she was dazzled by sunlight, yellow and bright and _warm_. (She hadn't realised how cold the void had been, she was shivering.) They weren't underground anymore, the sky right over her head, clear and blue, _so_ blue, vibrant and pure and cloudless. Around them was the sea, rippling with uncountable waves, whitecaps dancing at the surface, stretching to the horizon in all directions, crashing to throw itself against the shore.

The shore of an island, an absolutely _tiny_ island, hardly larger than the kitchen at home, small enough the mist thrown by the waves sprayed them from all directions at once. The ground was made of white tile fringed with gold, looping patterns stitching them together. There was nothing else.

Standing over them, not far away, was a man. Or, a person, at least — they were so androgynous, face smooth and round and almost _too_ pretty, body lean and straight, no hint in their figure of identifiable femininity _or_ masculinity. A metamorph, perhaps, or a golem of some kind. They were dressed rather oddly, a wrap-around robe in a deep red, the cuffs and hems green stitched with gold, the skirt cutting off at the ankles and the baggy sleeves nearly hiding their hands. By how the cloth folded over their chest, Ellie guessed it was fixed closed at their waist, but Ellie couldn't actually see it, an overly wide sash wrapped tight around them, the top just under their ribs and the bottom halfway to their knees. The sash was mostly yellow and black, the colours twisting together in curving, asymmetrical patterns, almost looking like tongues of fire surrounding the twining figures of...

...dragons? Like, _Chinese_ dragons.

Ellie frowned up at the person, her head cocking a little. They didn't _look_ Chinese, really. Their skin was a few shades darker than Ellie would expect, for one thing — more light than dark, but still noticeably brown — their hair black threaded with odd tones of blue-ish green, eyes a gleaming, shimmering gold. (Metamorph, _definitely_ metamorph.) Their features weren't quite right...though they didn't look European either, or really anything Ellie could put a name to.

That odd robe _did_ strike her as Chinese, though. She meant, not _now_ China, _ancient_ China. Really, _really_ ancient China — she was pretty sure newer (but still _old_ ) robes were fancier than this. More layers and more unnecessary bagginess, she meant.

Judging by, like, period films and drawings she'd seen in books, she meant, she was _not_ an expert in ancient China.

Ellie was staring at them, confused and still a little dazed from _whatever_ had happened when she'd been yanked through the arch, when they spoke. "I have long awaited your return, child. This is not the manner in which I expected you to arrive, but it will serve well enough." The voice was low and soft and smooth, though almost entirely expressionless. Ellie couldn't say whether it was a man's or a woman's — it _almost_ sounded more feminine than not... _almost_.

"Er..." Ellie wasn't certain how to respond to that. They'd been waiting for her? To return? Return _where_?

"Mind getting off me, Ellie?"

"Oh, shite, sorry." Tipping to the side off of him — Ellie had sort of been straddling Sirius for a moment there, which was just bloody _awkward_ — she popped up to her feet. Sirius moved to stand too, but he was sluggish and stiff, hissing. Hurt from the debris he'd been peppered by, she assumed. She gave him a hand up, started casting healing charms on him one after another.

"Right." A slightly unsteady glare settling on the strange person, Sirius pointed his wand right at their heart. "Mind telling me who the hell you're supposed to be?"

"I have worn many names, Sirius Nigellus. Most of them have been forgotten. Those that remain are not truly mine, but hopeless grasping in the dark, meaning forced onto a shape unseen and unknown."

Sirius frowned. "Was that even English?"

Leaning in close, Ellie muttered, "They're a metamorph. An _old_ one." The Queen of Nightmares had said something similar, in a story Ellie had read — _I pay no more attention to such titles as the wolf minds the frightened squeaking of mice...but blind curses thrown at something more ancient and more powerful than they can grasp...my true name has crumbled away, as you will one day...and still will I be here, when your Rome is no more, stone dust and memory faded..._

(And she had sort of had a point: that meeting had happened two thousand years ago, and while the Roman Empire was long dead the Queen of Nightmares still lived.)

He just looked more confused. "But I can't feel them at all."

...Good point, Ellie hadn't noticed that. Everybody had a magical presence that could be detected (even by muggles, supposedly), and the more powerful the mage the more obvious it should be. The truly _old_ metamorphs could be overwhelming just standing in the same room. Even if this person were putting in some effort to hold themselves back, to not terrify Ellie and Sirius too much, she should still feel _something_. But there was, just, _nothing_. Which simply wasn't possible.

Although...

The person standing in front of them didn't feel _different_ from their surroundings, no discontinuity to single out a person, as though they were just part of the background ambient magic of the world...but there was something _odd_ about that ambient magic. There _was_ magic around them, yes, but it was...too _thick_ , and...

... _alive_.

"I think..." Ellie swallowed, trying to force down the fear trying to crawl up her throat, to not let herself be overwhelmed by the enormity of the thought that had just occurred to her. "This, all of this, it isn't real. Not really. I think this is _them_."

The person smiled, thin and warm, but _empty_ , as though there was nothing behind their eyes. Because there _wasn't_ , this wasn't _real_ , there wasn't anyone standing in front of them. Simply a representation projected before them, along with the sky and the sea and the tile at Ellie's feet, by a mind so vast and powerful it simply shouldn't be _possible_.

Ellie clenched her fists to keep her fingers from shaking.

"You are very perceptive, child. Only rarely do I communicate directly with mortals, and only a very few of those notice what you have with hardly more than a glance." Right, _mortals_ , definitely an ancient metamorph...

With only the slightest hint of a shiver on his voice, Sirius said, "So is this the Styx, then? Gotta admit, prettier than I was expecting."

"You are not dead yet, Sirius Nigellus. The door you have fallen through does not lead to the land of the dead. It was a bridge, built to connect here and there, a facet of my work that had once been necessary but has now long since been abandoned. I'm uncertain how it came to be where you found it, but it truly doesn't matter."

This person...had _built_ that thing? "No offence, but your work is really fucking creepy."

They just smiled. "The magics of the gateway were fractured long ago. They can no longer operate as they were intended, which has evidently had unintended consequences. The chill of death you felt is not a consequence of _my_ work, but that of its caretakers in the millennia since the Severing." Their face going somewhat more solemn, voice low and dark, they said, "You know, child, that this Ministry of yours has been using my gate as an exotic means of execution. The magics broken as they have been, those cast into it do not traverse the void as was intended. How many souls have been cast out into nothingness, abandoned in isolation and starvation to descend into madness..." They shook their head.

"But... _we're_ not dead," Ellie asked. Just to be sure.

"No, child, you are not. Most who fall into the void are sparks in the night, too small and too alien for me to grasp. But you I can feel, and you I can intercept. It was simple enough to draw you to me before you were lost." They glanced over to Sirius, their head tilting slightly, the faintest hint of curiosity. "Although, I hadn't realised you were not alone. I intended to rescue you, child, but _you_ , Sirius Nigellus, were simply...caught up in the storm."

Sirius scoffed. "Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint."

"I am not disappointed at all. Your companionship will provide your Ellie no small benefit, I think." The metamorph paused for a moment, head tilting back the other way. "Speaking of unexpected companionship... The timing of your arrival is fortuitous. Not ideal, perhaps, but it does present an opportunity I had not anticipated. One of my chosen could benefit from your companionship and your guidance, I think."

"That's nice. I'd rather you send us back home."

"That which has been broken cannot be remade, not as it was. You know this, Sirius Nigellus." Sirius blinked at the odd person for a moment, clearly confused — and why shouldn't he, what had been _broken_ exactly? "The magic necessary to carry you on is prepared, now. Farewell, and good luck."

Her heart jumping into her throat — she hadn't realised she had so little time to figure out what the _hell_ was going on — Ellie yelled, "No, wait, what are—"

Ellie's breath was stolen with a crackling gust of wind, and the false world around her vanished in gold-white light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[Shang relic script] — More or less interchangeable with Shang-era bronzeware script. Seriously old shit, is the point._
> 
> _Right, so that's a thing. This fic appeared in my head when I was re-reading the Twelve Kingdoms books a while ago — that **just keeps happening** — and I do rather like it. For those who actually know this series, Ellie and Sirius are gonna tag along with Youko to En, and Sirius is gonna help Youko in the war against the pretender in Kyou, sticking around a bit afterward as an advisor and bodyguard. (Ellie has other shit to do, including hoping back home to deal with the life they left behind.) It might not be surprising at all to hear that having Sirius around makes Youko's early years in Kyou go **very** differently._
> 
> _Those who do know Twelve Kingdoms, Ellie's aversion to blood should have been a big hint what's going on with her._
> 
> _Those who don't, as I mentioned last chapter, Ellie and Sirius don't have any clue what the fuck is going on (and Youko isn't far ahead of them), so everything'll be explained along the way. Assuming I ever get back to this, anyway. I **do** like this fic, but I have far too many projects floating around unattended already._
> 
> _Happy holidays and shit,_
> 
> _—Lysandra_


End file.
